Saints skipper Hartley confident Clermont defeat will spark reaction at Exeter
Because a side that can at times be the rugby version of Jekyll and Hyde have got a good record when it comes to recovering from soul-destroying defeats.
After losing 25-6 to Ulster in unceremonious fashion to Ulster at Franklin’s Gardens in December, 2012, they bounced back to win 10-9 in Belfast a week later.
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Hide AdLater that season came an even worse Gardens thrashing at the hands of old rivals Leicester Tigers.
But after that chastening 36-8 defeat, they scrapped to a 31-14 win at London Welsh in their next fixture a couple of weeks later.
And in the final month of 2013 they produced the biggest turnaround of them all, picking themselves up off the floor after a 40-7 home defeat to Leinster to win 18-9 in Dublin.
So, Exeter Chiefs beware.
“We’ve got a big task this week against Exeter, who are a form side, away from home, so we’ve got to bounce back pretty quickly,” said skipper Dylan Hartley, signalling his side’s intentions.
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Hide Ad“I’m not worried about it (whether last week affected morale).
“There’s things to learn from the Clermont game and things to work on.
“There are a few things out there that couldn’t go unnoticed. We’ve had to look at them and work on them.”
And as Hartley displayed, with a wry smile after the question was asked, he and his team-mates know how to deal with setbacks.
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Hide Ad“I’ve had plenty of shockers,” he said. “Collectively as a group it’s pretty disappointing. Across the board, we just didn’t perform last weekend.
“It’s not like a few individuals didn’t play well and we lost the game by 10 points, seven points - it was pretty one-sided, so that’s the disappointing thing.”
The post-match honesty from Hartley and his fellow Saints was striking.
And that can only be positive as no punches will have been pulled in training at the Gardens this week.
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Hide Ad“Early on we went 10-0 down and we had a chance to put three on the board but missed,” Hartley reflected.
“They kept building and building and we compounded error on error.
“They got everything right: emotionally they were right, the intensity was there for 80 minutes and they took the opportunities every time we gave them one.”
“We were steamrollered.”