NIGEL WALROND

It was fabulous to be at the Gtech Community Stadium in west London to see Exeter Chiefs lift the Premiership Rugby Cup or its equivalent for a third time.

Six pieces of silverware in the last nine years tells its own incredible story of what has gone on at Sandy Park in the past decade.

It also shows the club has a very bright future, with a great crop of youngsters coming through. However, what a difference a week makes!

Chiefs’ supporters went from the joy of winning the trophy in Brentford to the misery of last Sunday at Bath, when Exeter once again collectively ‘failed to turn up’ against the Premiership’s bottom side.

While the future looks bright, the here and now is very worrying, and director of rugby Rob Baxter pulled no punches in his after-match assessment.

He admitted it was a complete mystery as to why the Chiefs are able to be so good at home – they have only lost once at Sandy Park all season, and that to runaway Premiership leaders Saracens – and often so woeful away – they have not won in the league on their travels since that amazing 50-14 victory at Bristol in early October.

That feels like a lifetime ago now, and if like me you have been to pretty much all the away games since then, it has been a gruelling few months. Whereas you used to be able to travel in the expectation that the Chiefs would win, or at least come away with a losing bonus point, recently it has been more a case of how many are they going to lose by?

They have been thrashed at Saracens, Harlequins and Bath in the past three months

– performances that have quite rightly drawn plenty of criticism from supporters, who have been asking ‘What on earth is going on?’

Rob admitted last Sunday that he is determined to get to the bottom of it, but whether it is too late to save the Chiefs’ Premiership season, only time will tell.

Two of their last three games are away from home – at third-place Leicester and fourth-spot London Irish – with a home match against Bristol in between.

They really need to win all three now to stand a chance of a top-four finish and a place in the end-of-season play-offs, but given their current away woes, of more concern is that they could drop out of the top eight and miss out on Champions Cup rugby next season.

Gloucester, Bristol and Harlequins are all hard on their heels, and after so many seasons of dining at European rugby’s top table, a campaign of Challenge Cup matches would be hard to swallow.

Today offers some respite from their Premiership troubles when they welcome Montpellier in the Champions Cup round of 16, and win this and they will have a home quarter-final.

However, the players will need to show a massive improvement on last weekend.

Will the real Chiefs we all know and love please turn up today!

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