Pellow frustrated after Braves loss

By Mark Stevens

Exeter Braves coach Ricky Pellow was left frustrated after watching his side slip to a 25-20 defeat in their opening Aviva Premiership A League game of the season against Saracens Storm on Monday night.

Last season’s A League champions kicked off their title defence by fending off a spirited Braves outfit in an entertaining encounter at Sandy Park.

Tries from Mike Ellery, Nathan Earle and Tom Whitely did much of the damage for the visitors, whose remaining points came courtesy of kicks from Baden Kerr and skipper Nils Mordt.

In reply, the Braves countered with tries of their own through Sam Simmonds and Byron McGuigan, whilst fly-half Will Hooley weighed in with a conversion and two penalties, alongside a late conversion from Joe Simmonds.

At the death the home side could have snatched victory with a late driving maul, but sadly it was not to be as their charge for the line was deemed to have been held up by referee Daniel Parrott.

Post-match, Pellow said: “Obviously we’re frustrated with the end result, but in terms of our first A League performance and our first get together as a group, it was really pleasing. We talked about the guys going out there, working hard for each other and fighting for everything, and they did that.

“Yes, we could have ripped it away from them at the end, going for the line and a pushover try, but sadly the officials said it was held up.”

Pellow praised his side’s fighting spirit throughout, but admitted some tactics and a loss of shape at times had hampered his side’s showing.

He added: “Tactically we could have played it a bit better, I thought we lost our shape at times and in the second half our kicking game could have come into play a bit more, but full credit to Saracens, they pressured us well at time.

“For a first knock out, some of these guys haven't played since pre-season you have to remember, it was very pleasing. Now we go to Bath next week, so we have to regroup, go again and look to make a few improvements from this week.”

Among those to impress for the home side were skipper Kai Horstmann and full-back Chrysander Botha, both of whom earned the praise of Pellow at the final whistle.

“I thought Kai Horstmann was outstanding,” continued Pellow. “He’s one of the senior players at the club and what you know you’ll always get with him is that he will always work hard. He makes the right decisions at the right time and when we had difficult periods in the game, he came through with real credit.

“Also, Chrysander Botha played well at the back. He made a couple of clinical breaks and he was strong in back field as well. At the same time, I thought our scrum was very good and it was a shame we didn't always get the rewards from the referee.”