Team news: Chiefs to field two XVs for Ospreys friendly
Exeter Chiefs have named two match XVs to compete against Ospreys in a pre-season friendly in Bridgend on Saturday afternoon.
Director of rugby Rob Baxter looks to maximise the game-time opportunities for a vast number of his playing squad as Chiefs will field two completely different line-ups in the first and second half with a bench of six players available to cover both halves.
Baxter said: “This game comes at the perfect time for us. We’ve done eight weeks of pre-season now and, fair play to the lads, they’ve trained extremely hard.
“They’ve taken on a lot of new information, especially around how we’re going to attack as we’ve got Dave Walder here to ensure a new focus on that area of our game. We’ve introduced new calls to re-zone everyone’s focus as they’re all learning something new.
“I’ve been really pleased at how the squad have bought into everything. They look in good condition and ready to challenge themselves in a full contact environment.
“It’ll be great to give 30-plus players game time as we prepare to move into a new season. We know it’s going to be very important for us to get a much better start to the season than we did last year, because we never really built a foundation for ourselves.
“This is an exciting time for us as we’re setting higher standards than we did last year, which is really all I wanted from this pre-season. Now, it’s all about getting ourselves onto the playing field to see what we can really do.”
For this friendly, flanker Ethan Roots is handed the captain’s armband for the first half before club captain Jack Yeandle takes the reigns for the second.
Five summer signings are involved in the line-ups, giving the likes of Joseph Dweba and Stephen Varney their first runout in a Chiefs shirt.
The game will kick-off at 14:30 on Saturday, 6 September at Brewery Field in Bridgend. Tickets are available on the Ospreys website.
Exeter Chiefs first half:
15 Will Haydon-Wood
14 Paul Brown-Bampoe
13 Ben Hammersley
12 Nick Lilley
11 Campbell Ridl
10 Harvey Skinner
9 Stephen Varney
1 Will Goodrick-Clarke
2 Joseph Dweba
3 Josh Iosefa-Scott
4 Lewis Pearson
5 Rusi Tuima
6 Christ Tshiunza
7 Ethan Roots (c)
8 Ross Vintcent
Exeter Chiefs second half:
15 Jed Findlay
14 Kian Gentry
13 Zack Wimbush
12 Harry Ascherl
11 Noah Fenton
10 Ben Coen
9 Charlie Chapman
1 Kwenzo Blose
2 Jack Yeandle (c)
3 Jimmy Roots
4 Oscar Beckerleg
5 Andrea Zambonin
6 Martin Moloney
7 Jack Forsythe
8 Kane James
Replacements:
16 Julian Heaven
17 Scott Sio
18 Isaac Godfrey
19 Luke Evans
21 Tom Cairns
22 Nic Allison