You can hear the excitement in Ian Whitten’s voice as he described the feeling of being in an Exeter Chiefs back-line when everything comes together. The bad news for Munster is that the Ulsterman experienced that buzz only last weekend as the Chiefs put Castres to the sword to set up tomorrow’s pivotal Heineken Champions Cup pool finale at Thomond Park.

Exeter is a club that has never been asked to run before it could walk and that has fashioned an inexorable rise, writes Brendan O’Brien.