Pellow praises his Chiefs

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Chiefs coach Ricky Pellow was full of praise for his side as they maintained their unbeaten run in this season's LV= Cup with victory over the Ospreys at Sandy Park.

First half tries from Will Carrick-Smith and Myles Dorrian, plus 13 points from the boot of fly-half Henry Slade, proved sufficient enough to see the Chiefs move to the top of Pool One in this season's competition.

Buoyed by their impressive win over Premiership rivals London Welsh the week previous, the Chiefs proved too strong in all departments for their Welsh rivals, who replied with a converted try from No.8 Morgan Allen and two Sam Davies penalties.

Afterwards Pellow - who has taken charge along with fellow coach Rob Gibson for the two Cup fixtures - was full of praise for his side's latest display.

"It has been a massively pleasing couple of weeks for this group of players," said Pellow. "The performance today wasn't where we probably wanted it to be, but to to be top of our group will give us real momentum going back into the Premiership fixtures next weekend.

"For this group of guys, they can feel really pleased with what they have done. We talked all week about backing up our performance against London Welsh.

"We came in at half-time and talked about what was going to get us momentum in the game - and we probably went away from that a little bit - with our carries and clear-outs and just taking the ball to them. We just tried to force things a little bit.

"It showed in patches, when we did get control of the game and we carried hard, that we could get on top of them. At times it was a little disjointed, but as a coaching staff and as a squad of players, we are really pleased with where we are at."

So with plenty of positives to take from the past fortnight, Pellow believes the Chiefs not only return to top flight action in good stead, but their LV= Cup ambitions also remain firmly in place with Northampton Saints and Bath still to come in the competition.

"When we come back to the LV= Cup, they are going to be two big games," added Pellow. "Northampton and Bath have been attacking the tournament pretty hard as well, so hopefully we can get a good result in that first game when we return to the cup and kick on from there."