Bossing the Chiefs!

Sublime! The only word I can think of to describe my feelings at the final whistle on Sunday. As Saints fans we have to endure quite a lot of the ridiculous so it was good to be on the other side of the equation. From 1 to 15 and then from 16 to 23 each and every one of them turned in a performance that we have been waiting for.

With Mitchell and Lawes back from England duty we had high hopes as supporters that we could pull this one out of the bag but most of us anticipated another close one and another sleepless night for Angus Scott-Young's mum in Australia.

But how wrong we were - our boys blasted out of the blocks when Fin Smith threaded the ball through the Chiefs defenders for Tommy Freeman to canter over. 

Not wishing to be left out the forwards out-Extered Exeter with a rolling maul and Curtis Langdon got the ball safely down. Two Fin conversions and a penalty saw us 17-0 up. This was when I started to get nervous - this was a situation way outside of our normal comfort zone......

Chiefs got off the mark with a trademark try from inches outside of the touch line but failed with the conversion and we went off for half time refreshment with a healthy lead.

Into the second half and I picked my time to go to the loo - once the queues had gone down. And such timing - Saints notched up a mere ten points whilst I was gone - in my defence if I hadn't stopped to talk to the Staffy service dog that was watching the game I would have been back to see Mitch's try. As one of the tunnel stewards happily pointed out to me "It was a brilliant try".

A disallowed try for Saints was followed by an allowed try for Chiefs. Then poor Fin Smith's face was on the end of a Tiller girl (young people ask your parents) routine from Chiefs replacement scrum half Niall Armstrong who was shown red.

The bonus point was tied up by a try from Fraser Dingwall, at speed from the base of the scrum and right under the posts.

Special mention must go to young George Hendy who looked as if he was living his best life! He has a unique running style - described by the coaches as an out of control galloping horse, I believe he has described himself as having his legs on backwards. After one of his metre-making runs my husband suggested that maybe all the backs could have their legs recalibrated.

More of the same next week please Saints when we trundle up to Pooh Corner to take the bounce out of the Tiggers!

Enjoy this week's photographs, courtesy of Claire Jones https://www.redhatphoto.co.uk