Hepher hails his Chiefs

By Mark Stevens

Ali Hepher believes Exeter Chiefs are realistic top four contenders in this season’s Aviva Premiership after they downed Saracens 27-19 at Sandy Park to move second in the table.

A kicking masterclass from home fly-half Gareth Steenson saw him land a record-equalling nine penalties to ensure the Devon club concluded this latest block of top flight fixtures with an unblemished record.

As well as seeing off Saracens on Saturday, Rob Baxter’s side also downed defending champions Northampton Saints on their own turf, before soundly beating Wasps a week later at Sandy Park.

And the air of confidence around the Chiefs camp is there for all to see as assistant head coach Hepher - who along with the rest of the Exeter coaching staff this week agreed new three-year deals - lauded the display of his players.

“The top four is not a dream for us, it’s reality,” he said. “The guys put a lot of hard work into it. We are comfortable with where we are right now, but we knew this game would be another key test against a top four side.

“As you saw, we responded well and the mindset of the guys is to turn up and do a job. They are well focused on that and they understand our game. We have many facets to our game, it’s about picking the right options at the right time.”

Certainly the Chiefs again displayed their growing maturity as they carried out a stunning game plan to thwart the Londoners, who countered with a late converted try from Maro Itoje and four penalties from fly-half Charlie Hodgson.

Hepher admitted backing up those two wins against Northampton and Wasps had put the Chiefs in a solid position as they prepared to return to European action this Thursday with a trip to French outfit La Rochelle.

“Obviously it’s important with two home games in this block to try and win your home games,” said Hepher. “We’ve done that and we’ve also picked that away win at Northampton, which was fantastic. However, it just makes the next block of fixtures even more important for us.

“The reality is going into winter that we are in good shape, but we’ve got to kick on. We can see it just in front of us, but it’s got to make us work harder and that’s the key message we are going to put out.”

Although Steenson rightly took all the headlines post-match, Hepher was quick to praise the hard work put in by the Exeter pack.

“We are strong up front,” added Hepher. “Rob Hunter has done a great job there and we are taking sides on which you need do if you want to be at the top end of the league. “We always changed our game plan in the past, it’s the strength up front that is coming through to allow us to really dictate in these big games

“We’ve always been tactically pretty smart, that’s coming through. We’ve now got a platform up front – the two tightheads are doing fantastically well, all of the front row are backing them up and obviously we’ve got a good quality line-out.”

With Messrs Baxter and Hunter taking care of the Exeter forward pack, Hepher is the brains trust behind the Chiefs back division in which Steenson (pictured) was again outstanding.

Paying tribute to the Irishman, Hepher said: “Steeno does a lot of the hard work himself. He’s out there doing it all and I just support him along the way.

“He’s great to work with; he has a fantastic technique and he knows his game inside out. It was no surprise to me that he knocked all nine over today, but as he admitted a lot of the hard work before hand was done by the forwards.

“That said, there is no-one I’d rather have than Gareth in those situations. He’s meticulous in his preparations and under that pressure it’s remarkable how he holds it’s all together."