Rimmer ready for battle
By Mark Stevens
15/9/17
Exeter Chiefs are bracing themselves for a ‘physical battle’ when they travel to Aviva Premiership rivals Worcester Warriors tonight (7:45pm).
That is the view of prop Carl Rimmer ahead of their Round Three encounter where the reigning champions will be looking to build on last weekend’s home win over newly-promoted London Irish.
The 31-year-old prop is set for his first start of the season, coming in for Ben Moon in the only change to Rob Baxter’s match-day squad, and the loosehead says the Chiefs will need to front up from the outset against a Warriors outfit, who for an hour last weekend caused league leaders Wasps no end of problems.
However, a final quarter flourish from the visitors saw them pull clear of the Midlanders and condemn Gary Gold’s side to a second successive defeat.
Rimmer, though, knows from past experience that the Warriors are a much tougher proposition l on home soil and says he and his team-mates must be prepared to force their game on their rivals from the outset.
“If you look back to last season we beat them quite heavily down here, but then when we went up there later in the season they had a new management team in place and they were a totally different animal,” said Rimmer. “They may have had the same players as before, but they were a lot more organised and much harder to break down. I remember going up there and having a real physical battle and I’m not expecting anything different this time.
“They have a strong spine to their team, which is made up of a mix of superstars and some solid Premiership players. If you look at their roster and look at ours, one on one you wouldn’t say we were massively superiors in any areas. What we have to do is go there and prove we are the superior team.
“That means we have to force the game on them, rather than sit back and see what they can do with their players.”
The Chiefs, however, head to Worcester in confident mood having secured maximum reward a week ago - and Rimmer is keen for more of the same this evening.
“Last week’s win could not have been more pleasing,” added Rimmer. “That’s not to say we have landed and we’re happy to stick there, but we didn’t go out and chuck the ball about and get lucky. We fought hard in everything we did, whether it be set-piece, defence our kick game, it all went well in what was fairly off weather conditions.
“Although we had lost in that first game up at Gloucester, we knew we weren’t a million miles away in terms of our performance.Yes, there may have been some external pressure heading into last week’s game, but there wasn’t anything internally and it was pretty much business as usual heading into Irish.”
From the outset the Chiefs underlined their credentials producing a first half display that yielded a 20-0 half time lead, before showcasing other aspects of their game - particularly in defence - and then hitting Irish with a late two-try blast that ensured the all-important bonus point.
A similar outcome is sought tonight from Rob Baxter’s side, who will be looking not only to maintain their top four placing, but glean a perfect fillip ahead of next week’s visit of Wasps to Sandy Park.