Team news: New line-up for Loughborough Lightning’s visit

Exeter Chiefs Women have made several changes to the match-day 23 ahead of Loughborough Lightning’s visit on Sunday.

With captain Emily Robinson out with a knee injury, Dorothy Wall will move into the back row making room for former Lightning player Abby Duguid in the second row. Maisy Allen will take on the role as captain.

The front row sees a prop rotation with Hope Rogers and Amy Rule starting the game.

Sabrina Poulin slots in at full-back after returning from sevens duty with Canada in Singapore and Perth, with Francesca Granzotto returning to the wing along with Eilidh Sinclair. Centre Naomi Brennan has also moved onto the bench along with hooker El Febrey after Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald picked up a hamstring injury last weekend..

Chiefs will be hoping to improve on the hard-fought draw against Harlequins last weekend and the draw they collected on the road against Lightning back in November.

Reflecting on last weekend’s game, head coach Steve Salvin said: “I think the foundation of any team's defence is how hard they're prepared to work and how deep they're prepared to dig and how hard they're prepared to fight.

“Sometimes what happens on the field is more important than the result. To know that we've got a group of players that will go that deep actually supersedes the fact that game ended up a draw because we will have to call on that sort of fight again this season.”

The intensity of the fight was illustrated by the tackle statistics from the 10th round, Chiefs put in 295 tackles…103 more than the next team in the league. Of the 10 top tacklers, seven were Chiefs Women’s players with Maddie Feaunati leading the way with 30.

Chiefs fans will be able to see Feaunati and many of her other international colleagues in action at Sandy Park this week as the club celebrates Galentine’s Day and welcomes young fans to the game with tickets at just £1.

Salvin added: “These internationals are really important for lots of different reasons. They're really important in their influence on the field. Maddie has been absolutely brilliant the last two weeks. I think Alex Tessier’s influence was huge at the weekend. Ultimately, there's two World Cup finalists there, so you would expect real top quality.

“Also, if we are going to grow the game, sell more tickets and have more people watching games, it's often the people that are on the field that drive that because the fans see something in those players or they feel connected to those players or they feel inspired by those players.

“So, I think it's important that those players continue to play well and we give them the platform to do that because not only is it significant in terms of what our games look like at the weekend, but I think it's also really significant in terms of the sort of generic growth of the game and the women's game becoming bigger and more sustainable.”

Sunday’s game kicks off at 13:00 at Sandy Park with tickets starting at just £1. Please follow this link to purchase your tickets.

Exeter Chiefs Women

15 Sabrina Poulin
14 Eilidh Sinclair
13 Alex Tessier
12 Gabby Cantorna
11 Francesca Granzotto
10 Liv McGoverne
9 Flo Robinson
1 Hope Rogers
2 Emily Tuttosi
3 Amy Rule
4 Linde Van Der Velden
5 Abby Duguid
6 Dorothy Wall
7 Maisy Allen (c)
8 Maddie Feaunati

16 El Febrey
17 Demi Swann
18 DaLeaka Menin
19 Gabriella Nigrelli
20 Zoë Dare
21 Lucy Nye
22 Naomi Brennan
23 Nancy McGillivray