Despite his side falling to a record-equaling 43-point defeat at the hands of Toulouse last night, Exeter Chiefs flanker Jacques Vermeulen is keeping the faith and insists a win is coming sooner rather than later.
Exeter have now lost nine of their opening 12 games in all competitions this season, with their only wins coming in the Premiership Cup.
Despite the results, including the heavy 64-21 defeat at the hands of reigning Investec Champions Cup champions Toulouse, performances have slowly begun to improve, and that leaves Vermeulen feeling optimistic ahead of their return to Premiership action next weekend.
“The win is coming”
“The win is coming,” he exclusively told Planet Rugby. “We’re just making a few mistakes that we kick ourselves in the week watching it back. I think there’s a lot of positives out there and we’re so close to a big game, it’s coming. We’ve got Sale away next week, and that’s a perfect game for us to take on, so we’ll be looking forward to that and training hard this week.”
This might seem a slightly optimistic view from the experienced back-rower given the scorelines against Toulouse, but Exeter should take plenty of positives away from the loss at Sandy Park.
Across the 80 minutes, Exeter made 404 metres from their 120 carries – an average of 3.4 metres per carry – and also beat 15 defenders and made six linebreaks too. Around that, players like Tommy Wyatt, Tamati Tua and Ross Vintcent had arguably their best game in a Chiefs shirt.
Commenting on the performance as a whole, Vermeulen said his team have taken a ‘positive step forward’ again.
“If you look at the performance, the few times we took them on we scored tries,” he said. “With the results we’ve been having, I think we’re just putting ourselves under pressure, but the times the boys freed themselves up they scored tries, so it’s just getting out of that habit of where we feel like we’re under pressure.”
He added: “We’ll go look at the mistakes we made. There are a lot of positives, and there are a lot of negatives; but on the whole, I think it’s a positive step forward. But, you’re playing against one of the best teams in the competition, so I think there are a lot of positives to take out of it.”
How to beat Sale Sharks
Their next game will by no means be a walk in the park, even compared to the might of Toulouse, as they venture to the North West to face a resurgent Sale Sharks. Alex Sanderson’s men have themselves had a tricky start to the campaign, but have only lost twice at home since the former club captain took the reigns back in 2022.
Whilst they boast an almighty home record in recent seasons, Vermeulen feels it’ll game will come down to whoever ‘comes through on the day’, with the sides likely to play a very similar style.
“Sale pride themselves on physicality,” he said. “And so do we, so it’s going to be the team that comes through on the day. We need to go and just have a look at ourselves, we make mistakes at the wrong time times and it’s individual mistakes, me included, but if we can narrow those little mistakes down it’s going to take us a long way.”
If Exeter do want to ‘come through’ on the day with their first Premiership win of the season, they will likely need their back-row to once again step up in the tight.
The four-man unit of Vermeulen, Ethan Roots, Ross Vintcent and Greg Fisilau has, despite the results, been a strong part of Exeter’s game this year. Against Toulouse, Vintcent notched a team-high 15 tackles, with Fisilau not far behind on 11 in just 31 minutes. England international Roots also made himself busy with 10 carries for 22 metres, with Vermeulen also notching three.
These are also very impressive numbers considering they were facing arguably the best back-row in the club game right now in Francois Cros, Jack Willis and Alexandre Roumat.
“Out of the four of us, I think each guy probably deserves a start,” Vermeulen said on this grouping. “Now it’s just getting the balance right, but the four of us are guys that can put us on the front foot. We’ll be working hard this week and focusing on individual quality this week and hopefully, we can get it right.”
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/exeter-chiefs-jacques-vermeulen-confident-win-is-coming-after-positive-step-forward-against-toulouse
