'No let up' says Steenson

By Nick Warren

Gareth Steenson says there can be no let-up from Exeter Chiefs after they made it six wins on the bounce.

The fly-half landed nine penalties from nine attempts to kick his side to a 27-19 success against Saracens on Saturday.

That equalled the Premiership record for the most penalties in a match, and kept the Chiefs in the top three, with a seven-point gap to former champions Saracens and Leicester below them.

Exeter now switch their focus to Europe, with back-to-back games against La Rochelle, before they return to league action. And 30-year-old Steenson wants his side to keep pushing forward.

“Winning’s infectious. We’ve had a good few weeks now – I think that’s six wins in a row – so hopefully now we can push on and build and build,” said the Irishman. “It’s been a good season so far but we’re not going to just pat ourselves on the back, we want to keep pushing and pushing.

“We’ve now shown we can beat the top teams in this competition, now there’s no reason why we should take our foot off the accelerator. We’ve got to keep going and working hard.”

Steenson deservedly won a lot of plaudits for his exemplary kicking display on Saturday, taking his tally to 131 points in the league this term.

However, he switched the focus back to the forwards who won most of the penalties he was able to convert.

“The boys up front won that game,” added Steenson. “We went in with the attitude of working hard and, whenever you see a scrum going down and the guys are pushing guys back, it makes life easy for a ten and the guys in the backs.

“Whenever they win those penalties they’ve worked hard for them, and it’s up to us to knock the ball over the bar. It was a real team performance and it was really pleasing.”

The Chiefs switched from their usual high-tempo game on Saturday in favour of a more territorial plan, making Saracens play from deep. That paid dividends, with the visitors coughing up penalties at the breakdown and the scrums, where Exeter’s forwards were dominant.

Steenson was delighted the tactics worked so well, having only beaten Saracens twice before in nine meetings in the top flight.

“We knew the way they [Saracens] like to defend. They’re a very quick line-speed side, something we’ve tried to add to our game,” said Steenson.

“We said we had to put a lot of pressure on them with our kicking game. In years gone by we’ve not played against them a lot before and we got it right on Saturday – we went at them and played our game and it worked, so we’re really pleased.”

In the latest three-week block of Premiership matches, Exeter have beaten defending champions Northampton Saints, Wasps and Saracens, who are currently fourth.

“It’s always a bit hard at the start of the season to really gauge where you are,” he said. “To come away with three results playing a game that’s a wee bit different to the way we normally do shows we’ve learned and we’re getting more experience at this level.”