Shoemark wants Chiefs to "push forward"

Jason Shoemark insists he and his Exeter Chiefs must continue to "push forward" as they look to preserve their place amongst the leading clubs in this season's Aviva Premiership.

The Chiefs notched up their fourth top flight win of the season when they impressively dismantled Worcester Warriors with a 40-6 victory at Sandy Park on Saturday.

In another impressive display from Rob Baxter's side, the Chiefs heaped further misery on the lowly Warriors as they ran in six tries through Ben White (2), Dean Mumm, Damian Welch, Phil Dollman and Haydn Thomas.

Although not on the scoresheet, New Zealander Shoemark again played his part for the Devon club, who will be looking to continue their rich vein of form away to Sale Sharks on Friday night (8pm).

"The boys are very pleased and getting five points is critical at this time of the season," said the experienced centre. "It puts us further up the league and gives us a shout for further honours.

"For us, the special number was six - not just because we scored six tries, but because that's all the points Worcester scored. All week we worked hard on our defence and we saw the fruits of that against them.

"In the second half, we got our rewards for our work in the first half. The wind was quite strong out there and to bat them back all those times and not let them cross our try line was huge. As I said, we reaped the rewards of that in the second half."

First half tries from Aussie duo White and Mumm helped the home side establish a 14-6 lead at the break, but in the second period it was all one-way traffic as the Chiefs cut loose in attack.

Now Shoemark and his team-mates are focusing their thoughts to Friday's encounter with the Sharks, who last season netted their first-ever win over Exeter when they won 21-16 at the Salford City Stadium back in February.

"The game just gone and the one coming up are crucial," explained Shoemark. "We wanted to bang in a win here and hopefully that gives us the chance to go up to Sale and correct a few wrongs from last year.

"They’ve been going well this year, so it is going to be a massive game. As we know it is always hard to go away in this competition, but we feel like we probably should have won that game. It hurt us a little bit.

"It will be a massive game this week, make no bones about it, but hopefully we’re up for the challenge."

Certainly the Chiefs have been in ruthless form of late and Shoemark says it's that drive to succeed that is pushing the club forward on all fronts.

"We have to take our opportunities in these games and I think we did that against Worcester," added Shoemark, who is now into his fourth season with the Chiefs. "We changed a lot of things from last year in pre-season and it has taken time to gel. New guys have come in worked hard and I think we are seeing the rewards now.

"That said, we can’t just rely on that, we have to keep pushing and improving because we have got some massive games coming up."

Pictures: Exeter Rugby Club / Pinnacle Photo Agency