Exeter eye Clermont double
The Chiefs quite rightly grabbed the headlines last weekend for their stunning 31-14 home win over Clermont Auvergne, but just imagine if they could repeat that at Stade Marcel-Michelin in Round Four.
Champions Cup finalists in two of the last three seasons, Clermont are currently in first place in the Top 14 and very rarely lose at home. In fact, you have to go back to 11 October, 2008, for the last time they were beaten on their own patch in the European Cup.
Since Sale Sharks beat them 32-15 in the first round in the 2008/09 season 24 sides have turned up and been beaten. The Sharks were also the last team to complete the double over the French club in the pool stages.
The Ospreys went to Clermont and picked up two bonus points in their 34-29 defeat in Round Two, so are the French giants now vulnerable at home? Chiefs wing Jack Nowell would like to think so, but the England star also knows the return leg is going to be even tougher than the first meeting.
"French sides tend to step it up at home, so the key thing for us has been to recover well this week and prepare right for the next game. We will do our homework on them again and there's lots to go with from the game we've just played," said Nowell.
"In some ways it's easy to say do the same as we did in this game, but we know it will be much different over there. But with the group of forwards we have, and the way they are performing, they are winning games for us.
"They are putting us on the front foot and then us backs are doing what we do best. We have been down at times this season, but the belief in the team is massive. A couple of years we may have let it affect us and maybe we would have looked to have changed something.
"We always knew it was going to be tough in the first-half last weekend, especially against the wind, but the big thing was the belief we had to carry on going, stick to our gameplan and know that things will eventually click into place.
"That win is right up there for me. People always ask what is your favourite game, and it would be easy to say it's your first cap, but the one that sticks in my mind is the Toulon game at Sandy Park a few years back.
"We put in a great performance that day, but to play a side like Clermont, and to beat them in the manner we did, I think that's probably overtaken that other game now. It's definitely one of my best moments."
