Team news: First PWR starts beckon for Nelson and Poulin

Canadian duo Mikiela Nelson and Sabrina Poulin will make their first starts for the club as Exeter Chiefs Women head to Kingsholm to take on Gloucester-Hartpury in round three of the PWR tomorrow (KO 15:00).

Both signed to the club in the off-season and came off the bench in the first two league games with prop Nelson earning herself a first try and a shortlisting for Player of the Match against Leicester Tigers Women last weekend. Their inclusion represents two of three changes to the starting line-up from that win at Sandy Park.

Playing on the wing tomorrow, Poulin said: “I’m very excited to be starting. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I just want to express myself on the field and I think it’s going to be a good test against Gloucester-Hartpury. I also want to prove what we are capable of all together. I’m very excited for what this team can do this season.”

USA Eagle centre Gabby Cantorna will also take to the field in the starting XV following her return from WXV1 in Vancouver, Canada.

On the bench, Chiefs welcome back four other WXV returnees: Cliodhna Moloney, Charli Jacoby, Linde van der Velden and Lori Cramer. It will be the first time Jacoby and Cramer have played for the club since signing up for more Chiefs fare last summer.

Assistant coach Steve Salvin said: “We knew it had to be a steady progression because those WXV players were playing test matches last weekend on a different continent. We need to give them a bit of time to adapt to being back in the UK and there will be a little bit of tiredness having been away for a month playing and training at test match intensity.

“Their return has just allowed us to go into this weekend with a little bit more depth around the squad, but it was never going to be mass changes from week one. The players who have been around have won us four games out of four up until now so deserve a huge amount of credit for that and deserve to be involved this weekend.”

Chiefs have begun their 2024/25 PWR campaign with two wins and nine points to take them to third place. Last weekend at Sandy Park, fly-half Liv McGoverne scored a round-high 17 points, including five from a try.

Four of the five top tacklers in the league were from Chiefs team: Niamh Orchard (47), Maisy Allen (40), Poppy Leitch (38), and Flo Long (35).

They go into tomorrow’s game with the highest tackle success rate from the previous round with 84.7% and the second-highest gain-line success rate at 59.7%.

Gloucester-Hartpury, on the other hand, saw Emma Sing make more metres than any other player last weekend with 225. On average, they also made the most metres carried (768) and kick in play metres (516) per 80 minutes.

Salvin added: “Our expectation is that they [Gloucester-Hartpury] will be a bit similar to us in that they will not bring in a huge influx of WXV players, largely because the contacted England players aren’t actually available to come back in this weekend. However, they have got a large Welsh contingent who are available for selection and played a massive role in them winning the last two Premiership titles, so we know the quality that will come back in.”

Exeter Chiefs Women

15 Merryn Doidge
14 Eilidh Sinclair
13 Nancy McGillivray
12 Gabby Cantorna
11 Sabrina Poulin
10 Liv McGoverne
9 Flo Robinson (vc)
1 Mikiela Nelson
2 Clara Nielson
3 Flo Long
4 Poppy Leitch (c)
5 Niamh Orchard
6 Ebony Jefferies
7 Maisy Allen
8 Emily Robinson

16 Cliodhna Moloney
17 Demi Swann
18 Charli Jacoby
19 Linde van der Velden
20 Taz Bricknell
21 Lucy Nye
22 Naomi Brennan
23 Lori Cramer