Muldowney expects a test

By Mark Stevens

Exeter forward Aly Muldowney says the Chiefs can expect another tough pre-season examination when they travel to Glasgow Warriors on Thursday night (7.30pm).

The 29-year-old spent a season with the Scottish outfit before making his switch to Sandy Park in the summer of 2011 - and knows all too well the threat the Warriors will pose on home soil.

"Glasgow is going to be another tough game for us," said Muldowney. "They had a good year last year making the play-offs [in the Rabodirect Pro12] and they have some real talent up there with the likes of Stuart Hogg, Duncan Weir and Ruaridh Jackson, so we have to be careful."

That said, the Chiefs will travel North of the Border in confident mood having sealed an impressive 56-3 friendly win over the Cornish Pirates on Saturday.

Muldowney was part of that winning line-up and he will feature again in this latest fixture, which will be Exeter's final test before their seasonal opener against Sale Sharks on September 1.

And with a virtually fully-fit Chiefs squad available, Muldowney will be hoping a big performance against his former employers will help put him in contention for the Sharks showdown.

"We've got another big season ahead of us," added Muldowney. "Obviously we want to start well, but Sale will want to come down here and do well because they won't have been happy with the last time they were here."

In four previous Premiership encounters between the Chiefs and the Sharks, it has been Rob Baxter's side who have triumphed on every occasion and Muldowney is keen for that statistic to continue when the two sides lock horns again.

Before then more pre-season preparation will need to be put in place, both on the training field and against the Warriors this week.

And it was clear against the Pirates that following the club's disappointing loss to Connacht in their opening pre-season test, significant improvements had been made by the Chiefs against their Cornish rivals.

Exeter ran in eight converted tries during a one-sided encounter in which they showed their power, pace and precision to deadly effect.

"It was a much better performance," assessed Muldowney at the final whistle. "Last week against Connacht was a bit of a disappointment, but we trained hard during the week and we worked on several things during the week and those seemed to work out."

Despite the scoreline, Muldowney also praised the input of the Pirates, adding: "It was tough out there. I don't think the score really reflects how well they played because they made it hard for us, but we had some hard carries during the game and that was what paid off for us."