Esher start on the backfoot

Sep 3 2008 Staines News

NATIONAL ONE Esher.............................8 Exeter Chiefs...........46

ESHER made title favourites Exeter work much harder than the final scoreline from Saturday's season-opener suggests.

It was against the run of play that Gareth Steenson opened the scoring for Exeter with a 17th-minute penalty.

Although Chiefs turned round 15 points up with tries from Dan Tuohy and Neil Clark, they had failed to dominate, and Esher looked as though they could upset the applecart.

They were unfortunate not to have been awarded more penalties as Exeter needed to infringe to stop Esher gaining advantage.

Neil Hallett opened Esher's account with a penalty. But after a sequence of scrum penalties close to the line and a yellow card to replacement prop Colm Hanson, a penalty try was given and converted by Steenson.

With Esher down to 14 men, Exeter managed three tries.

But to their credit Esher hit back with some excellent open play and got a deserved cheer when Seb Jewell scored after some enterprising attacks.

It was the Chiefs who had the last word, however, when the pack drove over wide out, with Richie Baxter convincing both referee and touch judge that he had scored.

Finally, with a minute to go, Kevin Barrett picked up from a scrum, dummied a blind-side pass and squirmed over.

Esher will take much more away from this game than Exeter as the young guns from Walton Road will have learnt much from their more senior and fully professional rivals to take into the next few games, beginning at Otley on Saturday.