Exeter Chiefs dominated Newcastle Red Bulls at Kingston Park on Friday night as they ran in six tries to two, five tries in the first half in Round 12 of the Gallagher PREM.
Chiefs Dominant
Exeter took control early on in the game, with Paul Brown Bampoe going over after a series of long passes stretched the Newcastle defensive line after five minutes, but Harvey Skinner missed the conversion from wide on the touchline. Campbell Ridl doubled the score, with yet more long passes causing the Red Bulls defence problems, and Tom Hooper found Ridl in loads of space for an easy score. Skinner converted this one to make it 12-0 after 11 minutes.
Things went from bad to worse for the Red Bulls as Brown Bampoe went over for his second try of the night after Stephen Varney flicked the ball off the ground from five yards out, after Newcastle had collapsed a maul heading towards the try line. Again, Skinner missed the conversion and the Chiefs were scoring a point a minute, with the score 17-0 after 16 minutes.
Bonus Point Secured after 26 minutes
Olly Woodburn went over for the bonus point score after 26 minutes, the second fastest bonus point secured this season, after Woodburn ran onto a pass from Skinner, who converted the try to make it 24-0.
The Red Bulls finally got on the scoreboard after 31 minutes, when Simon Benitez-Cruz took the ball out of the scrum, and passed it to Christian Wade, who used his footwork skills to avoid four tackles to go over the line in the corner. Brett Connon converted the try to make it 24-7.
However, Exeter weren’t done with the scoring as Campbell Ridl went over for his second of the night, and Exeter’s fifth after Olly Woodburn’s pass found Ridl for an easy score. Harvey Skinner converted this one to make the score 31-7 at half time.
Scrappy Second Half
The game became quite scrappy in the second half, despite Stephen Varney going over for Exeter’s sixth try of the evening. Exeter won their own line-out, and it was passed to Ross Vincent. Vincent drew two Newcastle defenders, and he popped up the ball to Varney who ran into the space left to score. Skinner converted for the fourth time to make the score 38-7.
Newcastle didn’t give up and their hard work was rewarded with a late consolation try for Connor Hancock, after some good phase work by the Red Bulls and Hancock was on hand to drop over the line. Ben Healy converted as the referee blew for full time to make the final score 38-14 to Exeter.
Exeter move up to third in the table with the maximum five points, ahead of Leicester Tigers before the Tigers travel to Villa Park to Face Gloucester on Saturday, whilst Newcastle Red Bulls stay bottom.
