Yeandle looks for honest assessment

Exeter Chiefs hooker Jack Yeandle insists there will be a ‘honest’ assessment of Friday’s performance after the Devon club slipped to their first defeat in nine games.

After an impressive run of recent results for Rob Baxter’s side, the Chiefs were dealt an untimely setback in the Aviva Premiership as they crashed 18-11 to Sale Sharks at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Danny Cipriani’s 13-point haul, together with a try for winger Mark Cueto, proved sufficient for the Sharks to sink the Chiefs, who themselves countered with a try from Thomas Waldrom and two penalties from Gareth Steenson.

In a night of few positives for the visitors, the sight of Yeandle returning to action after missing the past five games with a back complaint was certainly a positive.

And with a Westcountry derby clash against Bath Rugby next on the agenda for the Chiefs over the Christmas period, Yeandle says it’s key that he and his team-mates quickly regroup and look to address some of the issues raised on a wet night in Manchester.

“It is an away game up at Sale, they are very good at home, and we didn’t play like we deserved to win, and it showed in the end result,” said Yeandle afterwards.

“That losing bonus point will come in handy at the end of the season, but if we want to pick up the points, we have got to perform like a winning team, and we didn’t do that.

“After winning performances, we talk about enjoying it and then resetting and coming back for the next game, and it is even more the case with a loss, and it pushes you on, especially when it is Bath.

“It is a local derby, a big Christmas game, the boys will definitely be up for it, and there should be an extra bit of bite from us hopefully coming off the back of a loss.

“They are always big matches against Bath. We have said, as we have pushed up the table, that every game becomes a bigger game, so hopefully we have a big turnaround when we go back into training on Monday and Tuesday, face up to a few things and be honest with each other and the fact we didn’t perform today, and hopefully that will push us to higher levels in our next game.”

In a somewhat uncharacteristic display from the Chiefs, the 24-year-old forward said a high penalty count - which included two yellow cards in the opening quarter - combined with a string of unforced errors had proved pivotal in side’s eventual downfall.

“We were doing things that weren’t really us. We weren’t getting our basics right, and we haven’t had a penalty count against us like that all season,” added Yeandle.

“We rely on really good discipline and a really high work rate, and we keep plugging away and plugging away, trusting our defensive systems and we reap the reward, and that just didn’t happen at Sale.

“We were giving away penalties, letting them kick to the corner, and they were just mauling away, and even with those we were off the game and letting them have a good roll at us.

“Credit to them they took the opportunities when they had them, and it is something we can’t let happen again, especially if we want to keep striving for that top half of the Premiership table.”

He continued:  “All we needed to do was do the simple things really well. As soon as you start going off that, and doing really silly things that are not within our game. Our game plan just goes out of the window.

“Once we corrected that and started doing the easy things almost and the basic things, that’s when it did start to roll our way a little bit and we got a little bit of momentum.”

And whilst disappointed to head home with only a losing bonus point, the sight of Yeandle back in action after his enforced spell on the sidelines was encouraging.

“It is nice to get out there again, but not in those circumstances,” said Yeandle.  “Obviously, you want to win all of the games you are involved in, but we didn’t perform today, and we are all aware of that.

“Because we have been performing so high and playing so well, it is much more noticeable when we do have an off-par performance like that.

“It is nice to get back out there, but I could have thought of a nicer way to do it.”