Winger Woodburn claims the plaudits

By Mark Stevens
27/9/2016

Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter says regular game time is helping to bring out the best in winger Olly Woodburn.

Brought to the club at the start of last season, the former Bath flyer enjoyed an impressive first year at Sandy Park, scoring eight tries in 24 appearances.

And the 24-year-old has seemingly picked up from where he left off last term, claiming another two scores to his tally in last Friday’s 41-17 victory over hometown club Bristol.

It was a performance that not only had Baxter lavishing praise on his player at the final whistle, but also won Woodburn the man of the match accolade from the BT Sport pundits.

“He was fantastic, not just in his carrying and his danger in that area, but some of his high ball stuff was absolutely top drawer. He was plucking things out of the air and he looked as safe as houses,” said Baxter afterwards.

“Olly looks a big, strong, quick, really good rugby player, and those are some of the qualities we saw in him when we signed him, and he is thriving on regular game time and lots of good impact from Ali Hepher (Exeter backs coach).

“Ali is doing a fantastic job with the backs, and at the moment they are thriving on the way we are trying to play, and the speed with which we are moving the ball, and the angles we are running, and we look a threat all the time.”

Woodburn himself was delighted to get up and running in terms of tries for the new season and now he is targeting adding to that when the Chiefs visit Northampton Saints on Friday night (7:45pm).

“We’ve got some awesome distributors and carriers in the midfield and it’s us guys in the back three that are really benefiting at the moment,” explained the winger.

Exeter’s latest win meant it was back-to-back victories for Rob Baxter’s side, who have recovered well having lost their opening two games of the season against Wasps and defending champions Saracens.

But as Woodburn was quick to highlight, although the Chiefs were disappointed to lose both games, there was elements of play in both fixtures that gave them plenty of positives to build from.

“It was just really a few touches up,” he explained. “Wasps and Saracens are both tough opponents, so we didn’t get too carried away about things. We improved against Harlequins and against Bristol it was another improvement again.

“Coming into the Bristol game there was a lot of history around the fixture and a lot riding on the game because they had a point to prove. However, I thought we did a good job of extinguishing that.

“We’re disappointed we let in a few soft tries at the end, but overall any derby win is a good win. For me it was nice to come back to my home town and I’m glad they are in the Premiership again, but we had a job to do and we did it quite well. Now we have to recover up again and look to take it to Northampton this week.”