Chiefs Women to face Sale Sharks
By James Fowler
6/1/23
Exeter Chiefs Women’s Assistant Coach Steve Salvin says he “feels a bit like the season starts for real now” as his side make the long trip north to Manchester to take on the Sale Sharks in the Allianz Premier 15s on Sunday (12pm).
Following their opening round loss in November to Gloucester-Hartpury, the Chiefs have been in dominant form, collecting four consecutive bonus point victories, which included a hard-fought 27-0 victory over Harlequins at Sandy Park in their last outing just a week before Christmas.
Into the New Year, however, Salvin was keen to emphasise the challenges his squad will face, especially with many of their opponents now likely to be back to full strength following the conclusion of the Rugby World Cup in November.
“We’ve gone through that period post World Cup when everyone’s perhaps nursed some bumps from the World Cup and squads have been a little bit mixed,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see that now, I think we’re going to see fully loaded teams every single week, and we expected that to be the way the season would pan out. In some ways, it becomes really exciting now, and over the next five weeks we’re probably going to get a real sense for where we actually are.”
Looking ahead to Sunday game against the Sharks, who have started the season strongly, Salvin was fully aware of the threats that the Mancunian’s will pose.
“They’ve won three and lost one, so their form is great,” he warned. “It’s a really tough place to go, obviously it’s a long journey for us. They’ve got that bit of northern grit about them, which obviously makes it a little bit more challenging.
“One thing I think they always do really well is they’re really good at winning territory battles. On the occasions that they do lose, they very rarely lose heavily. They have this ability to put you in areas of the field where it becomes more and more challenging for you to score. I felt that last year and I feel it this year as well.
“You’ve got to be right on it to win up there and it’s one of those games that if we’re not right on it emotionally, it becomes a massive banana skin for us, so we know the significance of this weekend.”
Salvin says that he believes the success his charges have had during the early parts of the season is down to the competition that there now is for places within the match-day squad. However, the Chiefs coach was also keen to highlight his belief that there is ‘still significant room for improvement’ from his side.
“We have genuine competition for places throughout the team,” he continued. “We’ve got two, three, four players in each position that are really pushing each other on for that starting shirt and it’s creating a real competitive edge in the training sessions and at the moment that seems to be transferring onto the field.”
“We’ve had some good days this season and we’ve had some frustrating days. We’re reasonably happy with where we are, but we still think that there’s significant room for improvement.”
The Chiefs will be without influential back-rower Maisy Allen this weekend, as she’s away with the England Under 20s, and Salvin was also keen to explain the rationale for the other selection decisions for Sunday’s game, which includes captain Poppy Leitch switching to the bench.
“Maisy’s with the Under-20s this weekend, she’s co-captain for them. Maisy’s someone we’ve got really high hopes for, not just at Under-20s level, but in terms of senior level. She’s got the privilege of captaining the Under-20s, she’s away with them this weekend, which is fantastic for her.”
Salvin continued; “I’ve never picked a team without Poppy (Leitch) in it in my whole time here. She gives everyone else real clarity and confidence. We need to see how we compete without her, so it’s not a reflection of her performance. What I back that up with is, Abbie Fleming deserves an opportunity, she’s been phenomenal this season. She (Fleming) had a relatively disappointing World Cup in terms of the time she spent out on the field, but she came back in absolutely bouncing and she’s been consistently excellent off the bench, so she fully deserves an opportunity this weekend.
“The fact that we feel we can make those slight tweaks and changes again comes back to the quality of the squad. Cli Moloney has started the last two, three games and we’ve left her out this week, but it doesn’t weaken us necessarily because obviously Clara (Nielson) comes onto the bench, Emily (Tuttosi) comes into the team, we’ve got three exceptional hookers.
“As I said, the competition for places is just immense throughout and that is driving that real competitive edge.”
