We left Leinster off the hook last week, reckons Exeter's Ian Whitten
Ian Whitten, though, will be entitled to pause at some point and take stock.
The Ulsterman won an Aviva Premiership medal with the Chiefs last season, having carved out an impressive career for himself with the current league leaders and a side keen to make similarly big waves in Europe.
Well over 100 appearances and 22 tries have been clocked up in five years lining out at centre and wing with the club and his return to Irish shores this weekend will be illustrative of just how far he has travelled.
Whitten — capped twice for Ireland on the 2009 tour to North America — was a teenager the last time he prepped for action in what was still the old Lansdowne Road. He was still a student athlete, as the Americans call them, with Queens University Belfast.
“We played Wanderers, I think we got absolutely stuffed. I remember the wee clubhouses at the end. I’ve been around a long time. Feels that way now as well, so it does. It was All-Ireland League Division 3 or something like that. Good standard!” Whitten joined a long line of Irish rugby emigres when he left Ulster, but there was no sense as he spoke of returning with something to prove.
Exeter, on the other hand, may feel that way inclined after their loss to Leinster last week.
Lauded by just about everyone and anyone of late, the West Country club went into the first meeting with the province as warm enough favourites, but they were taught some home truths in how to win a game of European rugby in an 18-8 loss.
Their Director of Rugby, Rob Baxter, claimed Leinster’s greater nous in the elevated continental surrounds had seen them over the line, but the Chiefs have come back to clear every obstacle at which they have fallen in recent times.
They will feel this next one is no different.
“I’m sure we’ll pick ourselves up,” said Whitten. “We need to go away and get points to keep ourselves in it. We’ve lost (last Sunday), but we’re not out of it. We’ve three games left and two wins in the bank already. We’ve to push and try to get that four-win mark.
“Next week is another opportunity to try and do that.”
Whitten talks about collective belief. Of a lack of panic. He makes the point that they are a side sitting atop the domestic standings. One that went away to Montpellier and came back with a win in round two in October.
Even in the immediate aftermath there was a sense that they had maybe acquiesced in Leinster’s win. A side famed for turning the screw with endless pick and goes in the opponent’s 22, they failed to punch home time and again last weekend.
“It felt like we let them off the hook a bit,” said Whitten.
It has all the ingredients for another titanic struggle. The Sandy Park game wasn’t one for the semi-interested armchair fan, but it made for a fascinating battle of wills and muscle and Whitten is confident the few lessons required will have sunk in by Saturday.
“Well, I hope we can take a bit of confidence from the game. We had them under pressure, scored a good try in the second half to level things up. Probably in the first half we didn’t take our opportunities and put the heat on them.
“We lost the kick battle at times, we need to improve that and we need to look tactically at what we’re doing there. But there’s good signs for us. Like, it was a close game. Although we didn’t get a losing bonus point it was a close game.”
Saturday is likely to be no different.
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