Immanuel Feyi-Waboso inspires Exeter to victory against Bath

Exeter Chiefs 21 Bath 15

To win this game at Sandy Park you had to not only get the better of your opponents but also the elements, with a blustery wind whipping over the South Stand and wreaking havoc. Exeter ultimately did just that, propelled to victory and a spot in the Champions Cup quarter-finals by another extraordinary effort from Immanuel Feyi-Waboso.

The young England wing constantly roved off his wing hungry for work, with one of his many bruising runs setting up the decisive try for Ethan Roots. His personal highlight arguably happened earlier, fielding a deep Bath kick and skipping past tacklers to make more ground than he had any right to. While cautious of overhyping players with so few starts under their belt, sometimes you just know, don’t you.

“He is the closest replacement to a Jack Nowell we could have had, a guy who just gets you metres out of nowhere. And he is getting better at it,” Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, said of Feyi-Waboso. “He is only learning how to use those talents that he has. At least two of our tries came from momentum he gained almost on his own, at times when he didn’t deserve to get momentum. That shows his value.”

Exeter progressing to a fourth European quarter-final in five years did not seem the likely outcome at half-time. Bath, playing into the wind in the first half, had defended superbly backed up on their own line for so much of the opening 40 minutes, winning six turnovers and more than doubling Exeter’s tackle count while finishing the first half with just 16 per cent territory. It was a defensive display which Baxter described as “nothing short of incredible”.

On those rare occasions where they did enter into Exeter’s half, Bath scored. A brilliant break from 40 metres out by Ted Hill, claiming a Ben Spencer box-kick and having the speed to notably race away from Feyi-Waboso of all people, was impressive. As first halves go it was up there with the best Bath could have hoped for, with the hard work seemingly done in advance of playing with the wind at their back.

The only blot has been an unfortunate knock-on off a restart from Alfie Barbeary which arrived perfectly into the path of Ross Vintcent, immediately replying to Bath’s maul try from Thomas du Toit. Barbeary honestly could not have rolled the ball any more directly to set up Vintcent to score, but given how the game was poised having weathered the elements Bath seemed on top after Ben Spencer’s long-range penalty on 50 minutes made it 15-7.

Then, they lost their way. Injuries of course were critical. Finn Russell was forced off after 16 minutes with a groin injury with Johann van Graan, the Bath head coach, adding “we will take our time with him”. Cam Redpath also had to go off with 25 minutes left, forcing Bath to finish the game with two scrum-halves on the field with Ben Spencer at No 10.

They also seemed to lose some steam after that huge defensive effort from the first half and the bounce of the ball with those wind-backed kicks didn’t go their way, as Exeter’s forwards and Feyi-Waboso took over with Henry Slade landing some impressive conversions into the wind.

Bath continued to produce turnover penalties at the breakdown, bossing Exeter in that area until the end. Sam Underhill, the England flanker, was excellent in that area, a late poach giving Bath an attacking lineout only for Christ Tshiunza to strike with a timely line-out steal - not his first of the game either.

It was rather fitting that Tshiunza delivered in that moment, part of this young core of Exeter players guiding the team into a new era who continue to impress, with Tshiunza joined in a pack featuring Rus Tuima, Dafydd Jenkins, Roots, Ross Vintcent and Greg Fisilau also coming off the bench to score. Exeter crucially did not allow those first-half frustrations to knock them off course, setting up either a trip to Toulouse or a home game with Racing 92 next week.

“It would have been easy [for the players] to have thought at half-time they hadn’t done enough. But the reality was we got a lot of hard work done and that probably was the winning of the game for us,” Baxter said of his young side. “I know that sounds a bit strange because you would have thought Bath getting those two scores would have been the deciding factor in the game. But it felt to me we had so much possession and worked [Bath] so hard that there would be opportunities in the second half.”

It was some effort from Bath, with Van Graan rightly noting that his side would “walk out of the stadium proud”. But in the battle of the gale, Exeter triumphed.

Match details

Scoring sequence: 0-5 Du Toit try, 5-5 Vintcent try, 7-5 Slade con, 7-10 Hill try, 7-12 Spencer con, 7-15 Spencer pen, 12-15 Fisilau try, 14-15 Slade con, 19-15 Roots try, 21-15 Slade con
Exeter Chiefs: J Hodge; I Feyi-Waboso, H Slade, O Devoto (Z Wimbush 77), O Woodburn; H Skinner, T Cairns (S Townsend 57); S Sio (D Southworth 49), J Yeandle (J Innard 67), E Painter (M Street 49), R Tuima (L Pearson 57), D Jenkins, E Roots, C Tshiunza, R Vintcent (G Fisilau 50)
Not used: W Haydon-Wood
Bath: M Gallagher; J Cokanasiga, O Lawrence, C Redpath, W Muir; F Russell (O Bailey 14, L Schreuder 54), B Spencer; B Obano (J Schoeman 62), T Dunn (N Annett 62), T du Toit (W Stuart 62), Q Roux (E Stooke 68), C Ewels, T Hill (M Reid 51), S Underhill, A Barbeary (J Coetzee 68)
Referee: L Ramos (FRA)
Attendance: 15,000