There are few less pleasant experiences in this sport than playing against Saracens at a wet and windy StoneX Stadium. Exeter Chiefs found out the hard way as they offered plenty of huff and puff but were ultimately shut down by a more ruthless and efficient team. The visitors needed to win this one and their final game against Leicester Tigers to have any hope of qualifying for the semi-finals. Now they will be spectators when the competition narrows to four.
Saracens will be in the mix. They won ugly here, and were mostly on the defensive, but that is the thing with formidable outfits, they simply get the job done. This 21-12 win takes them to second in the table and puts them in the driving seat to secure a home semi-final with a final fixture against basement dwellers Sale Sharks to come. After their shock reverse to Bristol in the playoffs last season, the most successful club in English women’s rugby with three titles will be itching to lift a trophy they have not held since 2022.
“We had a team coming to us who were fighting for their season and we knew they’d keep the ball and throw the kitchen sink at us,” Marlie Packer said. “We knew we’d have to defend. We got the win and sent them back down the M4.”
Exeter’s Nancy McGillivray opened the scoring on five minutes when she stepped in from midfield to cut a hole in the line. Saracens, though, kept their patience. Three first-half entries in the red zone resulted in three tries and the game was in effect over at the interval. “We’ve worked on being clinical,” Packer said.
First Sophie Bridger scored; a scrum penalty on halfway became a driving maul from a lineout which became five points several phases later. May Campbell notched her 16th try in 14 games thanks to excellent work from Packer who tore down the blindside and popped a perfect pass off her shoulder. Then, three minutes from the break, Poppy Cleall burrowed over with Zoe Harrison slotting her third conversion for a 21-7 lead. Exeter’s job became all the more difficult when Claudia MacDonald was shown a yellow card for illegally slowing down the ball close to her own line.
Saracens should have added another after the restart, twice fluffing promising attacks and once being held up over the line. Exeter were just as wasteful and were regularly turned over on the ground inside Saracens’ 22. The Chiefs were incisive off first-phase strike play, and deserve credit for the intricate patterns they put together, but too often they spilled the ball in contact or found themselves in cul-de-sacs. “We’ve got to learn as a team not to panic, that it’s OK not to have the ball,” Packer said. “Sometimes we’re guilty of that. But we’re working on it.”
Exeter offered the suggestion of a comeback on the hour when Sabrina Poulin launched a counterattack from a loose kick and teed up MacDonald who raced over in the corner. Packer left the field but not before distracting Liv McGoverne who missed the conversion.
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That seemed to give Saracens the shock they needed. Their substitute forwards kept them in the ascendency and the closing minutes were staged inside Chiefs territory. Harrison is not the most creative 10 in the land, but her ability to control tight games behind a gnarly pack means she is a player for big games. Saracens’ stars will probably have two more to play before they turn their attention to a home World Cup with England.
