Stormers coach John Dobson lauds ‘superb’ Exeter

He admitted he was taken aback by the way the 2020 winners started the game at Sandy Park, running up a 28-0 lead before the South African side got on the scoreboard.

“In all the work we did on Exeter prepping for that game, I haven’t seen them play as well as they did in that first 20 minutes for a while,” said Dobson. “I thought they were superb. They literally blew us away. We were entirely flat.

“The way they attacked, their passing, their physicality… I just felt we were on the ropes from minute one. We were very flat, but credit to Exeter for the way they played.

“In the first half every single thing went against us. Everything seemed to go wrong and everything seemed to fall their way. But they deserve credit for the intensity they came out with.”

Dobson was pleased with his side’s second-half rally but admitted that they had left themselves with too much to do in a short space of time.

“I think we showed a bit of fight in the second half,” he said. “We opened them up pretty nicely and were unlucky with a couple of things.

“Maybe if the obstruction try had stood, we could have had an outside sniff, but the reality is that it was too late.”