| Exeter: (22) 40 |
| Tries: Cowan-Dickie, O’Flaherty, Nowell 2, Cuthbert Cons: J Simmonds 3 Pens: J Simmonds 3 |
| Sale: (13) 30 |
| Tries: Janse van Rensburg 2, D du Preez Cons: R du Preez 2, Wilkinson Pens: R du Preez 3 |
Premiership champions Exeter reached their sixth successive final as they beat Sale 40-30 in an entertaining semi-final at Sandy Park.
An action-packed first half saw Luke Cowan-Dickie, Tom O’Flaherty and Jack Nowell score tries for Exeter, with Rohan Janse van Rensburg replying.
Janse van Rensburg got his second soon after the break but Nowell replied.
Alex Cuthbert’s score looked to have sealed victory but Dan du Preez’s late try ensured a nervy finish for Exeter.
The Chiefs will face Harlequins in next Saturday’s final at Twickenham after the Londoners came back from 28-0 down to win 43-36 at table-toppers Bristol after extra time in a dramatic first semi-final.
Exeter will now look to win back-to-back Premiership titles for the first time in their history, having won only one of their first four appearances at Twickenham – losing three finals to Saracens in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Exeter’s fast start floors Sale
Both sides were missing key players – Exeter were without suspended duo Dave Ewers and Sam Skinner and opted to start Jack Nowell at full-back ahead of Scotland skipper Stuart Hogg – while Sale fly-half AJ MacGinty, superb in last week’s match at Sandy Park, was injured and the Sharks also lost centre Sam James in the warm-up.
But having given up substantial early leads to opponents in their past two games, Exeter came out of the traps superbly – Cowan-Dickie’s fifth-minute tap-and-go score arriving after Sale centre Manu Tuilagi was sin-binned for a high tackle on Richard Capstick.
Five minutes later a dominant Exeter went further ahead as O’Flaherty was sent clear by Henry Slade after the England centre pounced on a dropped pass just inside the Sale half.
Rob du Preez and Joe Simmonds then traded penalties but straight from the restart the Chiefs allowed the ball to bounce, Arron Reed reacting quickest to send Janse van Rensburg over in the corner.
The Chiefs, starting to get on top at the scrum, hit back swiftly – Jack Maunder’s excellent blind-side run setting up the field position.
When Sale infringed close to their own line, Nowell took a tap-and-go penalty and burrowed in for his first try since 20 September, before Du Preez sent over a second penalty to leave Sharks with a nine-point deficit at the break.
Valiant Sharks stay in the fight
Simmonds’ second penalty on the resumption made it 25-13 but Sale responded again as Janse van Rensburg went over from Du Preez’s grubber kick, despite Exeter protests over a possible forward pass in the build-up.
But Nowell – playing just his fourth game of the season having undergone toe surgery in October and then suffered a hamstring problem in March – was on hand soon after when a wonderful kick through by Simmonds saw Alex Cuthbert’s pressure on Simon Hammersley allow Nowell to collect the bouncing ball and dot down.
Another Du Preez penalty kept the gap in single figures, before Cuthbert went in from close range after multiple phases on the Sale line.
But the Sharks – in their first play-off appearance since they won their only title in 2006 – never gave up and Dan du Preez’s converted try from a tap penalty with nine minutes left brought them to within seven points again.
Another Simmonds penalty with three minutes left finally ended their resistance and allowed the Chiefs fans to celebrate another trip to Twickenham.
Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Sport:
“Credit to the players, they came through a real war last week, they had to dig massively deep and they’ve done the same today, although I thought they had more control today. I thought we turned up in a much better emotional state.
“Obviously the difficulties of the week and the two lads getting cited and banned, they were tough on us, but they were also good as they gave us an extra reason to fight and an extra reason to be good today.
“We turned up, we were bang on, we started the game with a great intensity, we managed to maintain that for most of the game, and actually most of our mistakes and errors came from a real enthusiasm to do things rather than locking down and being very accurate, so I’ll take that any day of the week.”
On Stuart Hogg’s omission:
“It was tough on Stuart, but it was the right thing to do. At some stage we were going to bring Jack Nowell back in and then I’ve got to make the call on who’s producing the bigger performances for the team.
“I thought Flats [O’Flaherty] and Cuthy [Cuthbert] have been going well and so unfortunately for Stuart, he was the guy who missed out.”
Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson told BBC Sport:
“You don’t win semi-finals by conceding 40 points.
“It’s not been in our nature all year, but our speed of thought and speed of movement and how intense we were around our own try line when they were five metres out is probably the biggest take-home lesson from today.
“We’ve been working all season on how to wrestle back momentum, how to then maintain momentum in the ebbs and flows of the game. There’s resilience there, we know that, we’ve seen it in the season, we’ve won with 14 men on more occasions than we’ve lost.
“In that first 20 we conceded 12 points and therein lies the game really – it was lost in the first 20.
“If we snatched it back at the last then it really would be snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, but sadly rugby’s not a fairy tale is it?”
Exeter: Nowell; Cuthbert, Slade, Devoto, O’Flaherty; J Simmonds (capt), Maunder; Hepburn, Cowan-Dickie, Williams, Gray, J Hill, Kirsten, Capstick, S Simmonds.
Replacements: Yeandle, Moon, Street, Lonsdale, Armand, Townsend, H Skinner, Hogg.
Sale: Hammersley; McGuigan, Janse van Rensburg, Tuilagi, Reed; R du Preez, de Klerk; Harrison, Langdon, Oosthuizen, Wiese, J-L du Preez, T Curry (capt), B Curry, D du Preez.
Replacements: Ashman, Morozov, Harper, Phillips, Ross, Quirke, Wilkinson, S Hill.
Referee: Tom Foley (RFU).
