Hunter pleased with displays
By Mark Stevens
20/8/17
Rob Hunter believes competition to get into the Exeter Chiefs starting line-up ahead of the new Aviva Premiership season will help to drive standards up during pre-season.
Forwards coach Hunter said he was “pretty pleased” after watching the English champions notch up victories over the Cornish Pirates (47-15) and Dragons (50-24) during Saturday’s Double Header at Sandy Park.
The Chiefs split their playing squad into two different line-ups for the two games, thus allowing a large nucleus to press their claims for a potential starting spot in the club’s opening league fixture against Gloucester on Friday, September 1.
“There was a lot of stuff we were looking to get into the games, which we did,” said Hunter. “Like any match, when you concede some points, there are always bits to look at as well. Overall, though, we got plenty of game time into a lot of players.”
Having bolstered their ranks with six new additions during the summer, many of those were given their first outings in a Chiefs jersey against the Pirates. Forwards Toby Salmon, Matt Kvesic, James Freeman and Wilhelm van der Sluys all took on the Championship outfit, while Aussie scrum-half Nic White debuted in the second fixture against the Welsh region.
Post-match, Hunter explained the reasoning behind giving many of the newcomers their chance against the Pirates.
“Externally, it always looks like it is easy to slot into our team, but the truth is it’s not. We are quite a complex club in terms of how we play, although it may look at times fairly simple.
“There is a lot to learn, so we very much loaded the side to play the Pirates with the new guys, to give them the opportunity to get lots and lots of repetitions in really, with both line-out and scrum, and away from that too, and we are very pleased with how they are coming on.
“There is a lot to learn for all of them, but we saw in the second game just how smooth and easy it is for those guys who have been here for a while. Our task is to get those other guys up to that level.
“The intensity levels we are playing at will go up again against Cardiff Blues [on Friday] and then again in the first league game at Gloucester the following week.
“It is about making sure we get up to those intensity levels that we need to, and some of the guys are pretty much ready to go now, and some of the guys will be ready in two weeks’ time.”
As well as the new faces added to the Exeter squad by Director of Rugby Rob Baxter this summer, Hunter says those that remain from last season’s title-winning campaign are equally fired up and determined to make their mark as the competition for places cranks up by the day.
“There are a lot of guys who didn’t play in the final at Twickenham who are pretty charged up to play in that opening league game. There are guys who really want to push and get a starting place and play in another final, so the competition for places right now is pretty high.
“We have got the new guys who have come in, and added to that amongst the guys who have been at the club a while, some of them have come back off their summer breaks in great nick and certainly look like they have learnt the lessons of last year, when we came back in for pre-season training when we were probably a little bit under-cooked.”
Saturday’s games were the first significant hit out for the Chiefs, who despite a 40-minute internal game, had yet to tackle live opposition. The English champions were due to play ASM Clermont Auvergne as part of their pre-season build-up, but that clash was cancelled following a request from the French champions.
Hunter added: “If we had played Clermont, we would have taken two sides and nobody would have played any longer than 40 minutes, whereas we have played an internal game against each other, and the ball-in-play time in that game was pretty high, so we got a lot out of that.
“Some of the new guys really stood out well in that – while quite a lot of the guys are probably pleased not to have had to go all the way to France in pre-season, to be fair, so we are pretty comfortable with where we are at.”