Whitten keen to kick on
By Mark Stevens
14/9/17
Ian Whitten insists Exeter Chiefs must kick on in the Aviva Premiership after they clocked up a first win in their title defence against London Irish at Sandy Park.
Rob Baxter’s side quickly banished the disappointment of their opening day defeat at Gloucester by running in five tries on their way to a 37-7 victory over the newly-promoted Exiles.
Now, Whitten and his club-mates will be looking to build on that success when they travel to Worcester Warriors in their latest top-flight encounter.
Keen to ensure they don’t suffer a similar start to that of last season, when the Chiefs lost four of their first seven fixtures, the hard-running centre admitted it was important to chalk up an early win.
He said: “There’s always a bit of pressure when you lose the first game. You’re searching for that first win, you want to get it done as soon as possible, so from that point of view it’s great to get the job done. It was good to finish it off with a couple of tries and to get the bonus point as well.”
It was just the boost the Chiefs craved, not that they were overly concerned having been undone at the death by the Cherry & Whites.
“It was one of those things, sometimes rugby goes that way, it goes against you a bit,” added Whitten. “We probably didn’t help ourselves with a couple things we did. Overall it wasn’t a bad performance, Gloucester is a tough place to go.
“I think we took a lot of heart and confidence from the way we played there and went to the Irish game and got a couple scores early which helped us with the conditions.
“So all in all, it’s not a bad start to the season, but the important thing for us is that we kick on now. We’ve had a couple games, we’re up to speed now, so it’s important we keep getting better and keep raising our level.”
Next up for the Chiefs is Friday’s trip to Sixways against a Worcester outfit, who have yet to win this season and who have never beaten the Chiefs in Premiership history.
Whitten, though, is aware of the home threat and says the visitors will need to be fully focused on the task ahead.
“They’ve a good, hard edge to them,” Whitten said. “With Ben Te’o in the centre, Donncha O’Callaghan and GJ Van Velze in the pack, there’s a good hard edge to the way Worcester play. It’s going to be very tough up there on Friday night. They’ll be looking for the win but we’ll hopefully impose our game on them.”
