THE Tigers' three-game winning run was ended in the Park Lane mud by the Exeter Chiefs, who headed back down to Devon with four championship points after toppling Sedgley 8-22.

SEDGLEY PARK           8

EXETER CHIEFS           22 

National League Division One 

SEDGLEY’S impressive three-game winning run was brought to an end by the mighty Chiefs, whose forward power combined with the tactical and place kicking of stand-off Tony Yapp proved just too much for the home side.

Full-time teams should always start favourites against part-time sides, but for long periods of the game the Tigers more than held their own, they just couldn’t find a way through the Chiefs’ defence to add to the first half try scored by Chris Briers.

Throw into the mix indifferent refereeing, with the Chiefs’ cynical approach to the rules, especially around the ruck area when on the defensive, and the Tigers’ poor kicking game, and the seventh-placed Devon side was always favourite to win this contest.

“What is frustrating is that the refereeing is different every week, there is no consistency and Exeter took advantage, that’s not a complaint it is more a compliment to them,” said Tigers’ backs coach, Andy Northey.

“Their fly-half, Tony Yapp, won them the game, he produced a consummate display and they generally played a very uncomplicated, direct and effective game, plus in the right parts of the field they were too big and strong for us.

"Having said that we helped them with our poor kicking and the amount of penalties we gave away; we were simply beaten by a better side. Our tackling was ineffective on the day and we could not handle Mark Fatialofa.

“But we are not too down, we put up a good fight against a big strong full-time side and if things had gone differently we might have pinched a bonus point, but we didn’t.”

Early on Sedgley’s defence was solid so the Chiefs tried to undermine the Tigers with some niggly antics, but play was pretty even.

Then on 14 minutes scrum ball was fed out left to Jamie Albinson who made a darting break down the touchline looking like he may go all the way, but he was forced to turn back inside and Phil Jones’ diagonal cross-field kick was pounced on by Briers as it neared the Chiefs’ line and he crossed for the try. Unfortunately Jones could not add the conversion.

Exeter stepped up the pace and from a lineout on the Tigers' 22 the ball was fed right to left, where big centre Mark Fatialofa barged through some ineffective Sedgley tackling to make it all square before Yapp stepped up to give the Chiefs the lead with the conversion on 22 minutes. A Yapp penalty six minutes later made it 5-10 to the Chiefs and he had two more opportunities at goal but missed both.

In the second half Exeter began to turn the screw even more although Sedgley scored again, with Jones sinking a 35-metre penalty to make it 8-10.

Unfortunately the Chiefs cranked things up even more and used their superior organisation and size up front to fashion two very similar tries by skipper Richard Baxter and replacement flanker Alan Miller – penalty, kick, five-metre lineout, catch-and-drive to the line – to seal the win.  

SEDGLEY PARK: Riley, Jope (Hall 66), Briers, Voortman (T. Albinson 70), Craig, Jones, J. Albinson (Leck 55), Evans (Roberts 59), Roddam, Halsall (Du Plessis 66), Fourie, Norris, Newton (Keys 72), Ponton, Skurr. Replacements not used: Livesey. Tries: Briers (14). Penalties: Jones 1. 

EXETER CHIEFS: Breeze, Murdoch, Fatialofa, Kelly, Kingdom (Bedford 48), Yapp, Wilson, Parkes, Blythe (Groves 40), Horn-Smith (Liddington 63), Brown, Hodge (Hanks 51), Walker, Willis (Miller 55), Baxter. Replacements not used: Bolt, Staniforth. Tries: Fatialofa (20), Baxter (54) and Miller (68). Conversions: Yapp 2. Penalties: Yapp 1.