Young talent and World Cup experience combine for Tigers’ test

Sunday’s return to the PWR will see World Cup finalists play alongside injury returnees and university players as Exeter Chiefs Women take on Leicester Tigers Women (KO 13:00).

Scotland international and Exeter Chiefs’ long-term pathway coach Eilidh Sinclair will start at full-back alongside Danielle Preece on the wing, who she coached at Exeter College. Sinclair also coached prop Lilly Plowman at the college, who is poised to make her PWR debut from the bench.

Lock Kate Smith will make her first PWR start after recovering from a dislocated shoulder that required two operations. Maddie Feaunati returns after missing the last few games before Christmas with a shoulder injury.

Elsewhere, winger Katie Buchanan completes the back three with Naomi Brennan and Nancy McGillivray in the centre berths. Liv McGoverne will orchestrate the troops from fly-half with scrum-half Lucy Nye getting her first league start of the season.

The pack welcomes back Exeter’s own Abby Middlebrooke at loosehead, alongside Canadian internationals Emily Tuttosi and DaLeaka Menin. Dorothy Wall accompanies Smith in the second row with captain Emily Robinson and Maisy Allen completing the back row with Feaunati.

Winger Eleanor Hing and prop Alessia Skeates are hoping to make their PWR debuts from the bench while new signings hooker Eleanor Febrey and Ellen Scantlebury will be looking for their first run-outs for Exeter Chiefs.

Also, are back-rows Gabriella Nigrelli and Zoë Dare, and scrum-half Flo Robinson.

It has been seven weeks since Chiefs Women last played following a bye week and a break in the league over Christmas and all of January. This weekend’s 23 get to run out at a Sandy Park crowd boosted by a £1 ticket deal for children and youths (17 and under).

Exeter Chiefs head coach Steve Salvin said: “Obviously, we know we don't currently fill the stadium, but we have one side of it that looks pretty busy and the noise that comes from those supporters is absolutely immense. The girls feel that energy they create and feed off that energy.”

Tigers Women will arrive at Sandy Park chasing their first win of the season.

Salvin added: “The first thing to recognise is they have some really good individual players…Heinrich at 13, Bitter at 10. These are international players who played for USA during the World Cup.

“If you make any assumptions that their previous results will play a role in our game this weekend, you're sort of setting yourself up to fail a little bit. We've been really impressed by their kick game. They seem to do a really effective job of finding grass in the backfield and that can be quite a draining thing when teams do that well against you. We know we need to be smart in terms of our backfield. When they played against Quins, they scored four tries and they scored four tries through some really, really good attack.”

Meanwhile Salvin is hoping to harness a positive mindset for this weekend’s game to ensure there is no repeat of last season’s home game against Sale Sharks Women when they recorded their first win of 2024/25.

He said: “I think the bit that we've probably tried to really push this week with the girls above anything else is around mentality. We understand there's an expectation that we should win this weekend, but it's probably not far off a year to the day that we went into a home game at Sale and that same expectation was on us…and we lost.

“A lot of the girls that are still here now experienced that game. It’s the same time of year with conditions not great and us heavy favourites to win, and we didn't perform. The mindset played a really significant role in that. We have to be in the right place emotionally to make sure that we perform.”

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 Eilidh Sinclair
14 Katie Buchanan
13 Naomi Brennan
12 Nancy McGillivray
11 Danielle Preece
10 Liv McGoverne
9 Lucy Nye
1 Abby Middlebrooke
2 Emily Tuttosi
3 DaLeaka Menin
4 Kate Smith
5 Dorothy Wall
6 Emily Robinson (c)
7 Maisy Allen (vc)
8 Maddie Feaunati

16 Eleanor Febrey
17 Alessia Skeates
18 Lilly Plowman
19 Gabriella Nigrelli
20 Zoë Dare
21 Flo Robinson
22 Ellen Scantlebury
23 Eleanor Hing