Braves 33 Irish 10

Exeter Braves 33

London Irish 10

Mark Stevens at Sandy Park

Exeter Braves kept alive their hopes of booking a place in this season’s Aviva Premiership A League semi-finals with another resounding home victory against London Irish.

In a powerful display from Devon’s finest, they recorded another maximum haul of points courtesy of a penalty try and further touchdowns from Chrysander Botha, Sam Simmonds, Greg Bateman and Jack Stanley.

Fly-half Ceri Sweeney slotted a further four conversion for the Braves, who along with Saracens Storm have pitted themselves as the frontrunners in the Southern Group.

Irish did their best to keep the Braves in check in an often one-sided encounter, but all they could muster was ten points from former Exeter player Myles Dorrian.

Having seen their last A League fixture get cancelled at the last minute due to Bath being unable to raise a side, it was a powerful Braves side that took to the field for their latest Monday night engagement.

Led out by experienced skipper James Scaysbrook, the Braves were able to parade five full internationals in their ranks, including Namibian international Botha, who took just three minutes to make his mark.

A bright start from the hosts saw them quickly set up camp deep inside the 22 and following a series of simple drives, a clever switch pass from scrum-half Pat Phibbs saw him create the opening for the full-back to coast over by the posts.

Fly-half Sweeney slotted the conversion to that score and Exeter’s second try which arrived ten minutes later.

Young centre Max Bodilly caused the initial unrest with some sparkling footwork that left a trail of destruction behind him - and then when the ball was worked across the field through a plethora of hands, there was flanker Simmonds to burrow over from close range.

The Braves continued to offer the great threat in attack and came close to adding to their tally when the industrious Simmonds looked to plough his way through the middle. On this occasion, though, fellow back-rower Sam Skinner could not latch onto his pass and the chance was lost as he spilled the ball just metres from the visiting line.

Irish, though, continued to cause the occasional problem, particularly up front where the visiting scrum and driving line-out offered genuine threats. Indeed, it was from a line-out five metres out that the Braves lost No.8 Skinner to the cooler for ten minutes when he was sin-binned by referee Christopher Ridley for a professional foul.

Although they held the numerical advantage, it took until the last action of the half for Irish to finally make the breakthrough. Former Chiefs fly-half Dorrian slotting a penalty after the home side were pulled up for infringing at a ruck just outside their own 22.

HALF TIME EXETER BRAVES 14 LONDON IRISH 3

Exeter introduced the experienced Brett Sturgess and Greg Bateman for the start of the second half in place of Carl Rimmer and Elvis Taione - and the duo were quickly into the action as the Devonians looked to inflict more woe on the visiting Londoners.

A clever kick in behind from Bodilly helped press the Exiles back deep inside their own 22 and when the Braves regathered possession, a swift handling move across the field almost saw Botha and Arnott profit only for the latter to be bundled into touch by some scramble defence from the visitors.

The Braves, however, were slowly upping the pressure and following a succession of scrums just five metres from the Irish whitewash, they made the breakthrough once more.

With Sturgess, Bateman and Brown causing no end of problems in the front-row, it came as little surprise when referee Ripley went in under the sticks for a penalty try after four scrums had been dropped by the Exiles.

Minutes later and the bonus point was in the bag as more impressive build-up play from the home side allowed hooker Bateman to steal over in the left corner to make it 26-3.

To their credit, Irish continued to plug away and they were rewarded on 67 minutes when a sprightly break from Connor Murphy saw him release Ollie Currie, who in turn fed the ball to Dorrian who was able to glide over for the try, which he also converted without little fuss.

The score seemed to lift the Exiles and another rapid raid from Murphy down the right almost resulted in another score, but on this occasion the visitors could not capitalise as they knocked on with the try-line in sight.

However, any thoughts Irish had of staging a late revival were extinguished with a moment of magic from highly-rated prop Stanley. The young forward latched onto a pass, turned on the after burners before providing a sublime ‘show and go’ that allowed him to steal over for try number five, converted by Sweeney.

That was effectively that for the Braves, but for the watching Exeter coaches there were again plenty of positives and plenty to ponder ahead of Saturday’s Premiership clash against the same opposition.

Braves: C Botha (A Willcockson 63); F Vainikolo, M Bodilly, A Hughes, J Arnott; C Sweeney, P Phibbs (S Townsend 52); C Rimmer (B Sturgess h/t), E Taione (G Bateman h/t), A Brown (J Stanley 58); J Sexton (S Naqelevuki 55), E Holmes, S Simmonds, J Scaysbrook (capt, L May 75), S Skinner.

Tries - Botha, Simmonds, Penalty Try, Bateman, Stanley; Conversions - Sweeney (4)

Yellow Card: Skinner

Irish: C Cowell (C Smith 71); R Neal, T Fowlie, E Griffin (H Lightfoot-Brown 60), J Williams; M Dorrian (capt), C Murphy (W Crow 71); J Hagan (T Smallbone 30), M Mayhew (O Adams 67), L Halavatau (R Palframan 65); T Vukasinovic (C Stonehill 55), T Salmon; O Currie, C Gilsenan (L Frost 67), C Stevenson.

Try - Dorrian; Conversion - Dorrian; Penalty - Dorrian

Referee: C Ridley

Attendance: 1,341