Yeandle expects fierce Saints riposte
By Mark Stevens
20/9/20
Jack Yeandle insists Exeter Chiefs are looking no further than opponents Northampton Saints ahead of today's crunch Heineken Champions Cup encounter at Sandy Park (5:30pm).
In what will be a third meeting between the two Premiership rivals this season - the Chiefs have won the previous two - the hosts go into the last eight showdown as the form team in the competition, having won six of their seven league fixtures since rugby restarted last month.
One of those victories came against the Saints - on their own patch - but club captain Yeandle insists that such form will count for little in a contest which is effectively 'winner takes all'.
Only once before have Rob Baxter's side reached the last eight of Europe's top club competition - that was back in 2016 at the Ricoh Arena, when a last-gasp conversion from Jimmy Gopperth gave Wasps a 25-24 victory.
Hooker Yeandle was part of the Chiefs squad that day and he knows more than anyone how tough that defeat was to take. He said: "It's a special competition and if you look back to the last time we were in a quarter-final, we were on the wrong end of a loss against Wasps and it was absolutely heart-breaking to lose a try and long-range kick right at the end.
"This opportunity is not something we're going to take for granted. We've worked incredibly hard to get a home quarter-final, so we want to really make that count and everyone's so excited to be here and show what it means to us.
"For me, it definitely feels part of a journey - I've been in it from the start. I remember my first year here when we had a celebratory meal for the fact we got into the Heineken Cup. We had another when we got our first win in the competition at Scarlets - a really big moment.
"You look at the growth of the club now and how many of those little landmarks we've knocked off along the way, so we're targeting every game as a win now, regardless of the opposition or team we put out, and it shows how the squad's grown along with our ambitions.
"As I said, we're not looking beyond this fixture, but we feel we've got the squad depth to compete both in Europe and in the Premiership. You've only got to look at results we've picked up using our whole squad. We're in a good place, we've got to just make it count."
Despite a dismal return to rugby for the Saints, they've lost six of their last seven fixtures in the Premiership, Yeandle insists Chris Boyd's visitors have more than enough within their squad to cause the Chiefs plenty of problems come kick-off time.
"Ultimately, they are coming down here with nothing to lose," added Yeandle. "That's probably when they're at their most dangerous - they can look to force that extra offload or do something completely different or off the cuff.
"Results haven't been going their way of late, but we've got to watch out for a backlash because you can be lulled into a false sense of security. It's going to come down to how well our team starts the game and pushes on, rather, than going into it feeling comfortable.
"The last time we played them here in February, we won 57-7, but after 30 minutes it was only 3-0 and we'd had to work really hard to keep out waves of attacks from them. We got on top of them just before half-time and it was down to how well we defended.
"We wore them down and we'll need to do the same now because Saints are going to throw the kitchen sink at us. We've just got to make sure we do our bits well and then take our attacking opportunities when they come along."