Pellow's delight at Cup win

By Mark Stevens
12/3/17

Ricky Pellow praised his Exeter Chiefs side after they saw off rivals Harlequins 24-7 at Sandy Park to book themselves a place in this season’s Anglo-Welsh Cup final.

Tries from Lachie Turner, Max Bodilly, Julian Salvi and Sam Simmonds paved the way for the Devon club to set-up a third successive final appearance in this competition, where they will now face Leicester Tigers at the Twickenham Stoop this Sunday (3pm).

In a contest in which the Chiefs dominated for long periods, Harlequins struggled to cope with the pace, power and precision of their top flight rivals.

Converted scores for Turner and Bodilly gave the home a 14-0 lead, before skipper Salvi and back-row colleague Simmonds followed suit in the second half.

Post-match, a delighted Pellow said: “Obviously we’re very pleased to have got the win and overcome a strong Harlequins side. We came in at half time and said we had to reset a little bit, but second half we took a real stronghold of the game, got on top of Quins, and got the result.

“Personally, I’m just massively pleased for this group of players because they have worked hard over a long period of time to get to the final - and now they have the chance to go out there next week and compete for a trophy.”

As well as being ruthless in attack, Exeter’s defensive showing was equally impressive as it took until the final minute of the match for the visitors to finally get themselves on the scoresheet through a converted score from Calum Waters on his debut.

“We didn’t give them much space to play in and we talked all week about being relentless with our line-speed,” added Pellow. “We didn’t allow them to play and we really suffocated their attacking game. If you look at the scoreboard, apart from that last try, we actually stood in front of them and stopped a lot of their threats. I thought defensively we were very strong today.”

Although the Chiefs will look back at certain moments of the game where they didn’t always make the most of their chances created, overall it was another accomplished display from the Chiefs, who will be looking to replicate their success of 2014 when they beat Northampton Saints to lift the Cup.

“We had opportunities where we got momentum into the game, but then probably forced things a little too much,” said Pellow.  “From that perspective, you could say we were a little bit frustrated going in at half time. However, in the second half we got the pressure on and we managed to turn that into points.”

With the Leicester Tigers now lying in wait for the Chiefs in next week’s showpiece final, Pellow will use the next few days to fine tune his squad for what should be another testing encounter in the nation’s capital.

“I don’t think we will change things up too much,” conceded the Cornishman. “These players have got us to the semi-final and next week they will have the opportunity to back that up. I think what today shows is the strength in depth of our squad. Last week we had a virtually different group of players who went to Leicester in the league and put in a huge performance - and today we had another group who did equally as well to get us into a Cup final.

“If you look at today, Harlequins came down here with a very strong line-up, but we stood up and put in a huge performance. I know when teams release their line-ups and you have a look at them, sometimes it can be perceived to be stronger on paper. However, what it does do is it raises everyone’s game.

“Whatever side we face next week, we know it will be a tough test. That said, it will also be a good opportunity for our guys to go out and test themselves in a really big game. That’s some we tend to thrive on, so we’ll rest up now, reset ourselves again, and look to have a really good training week and build for Sunday.”