Exeter Chiefs became the first away side to win in the league at Welford Road in 14 months, with two tries from veteran full-back Olly Woodburn securing a memorable victory over Leicester Tigers.
In material terms, the win made little difference to Exeter – they still need to beat Saracens at home in their final regular-season game to reach the playoffs. But they will go into Saturday's Sandy Park shootout with belief coursing through them after storming the Tigers' lair.
The victory illustrated how far they have travelled this season. Exeter's long-serving director of rugby, Rob Baxter, has done a tremendous job engineering the turnaround from the low of last season when the Chiefs trailed in ninth out of ten. Now, his charges are within touching distance of a semi-final.
Woodburn said: “I love scoring tries, I love assisting tries and I have a lot of love for this team. We had that belief going into this game that we could come here and cause an upset so we're excited to see what our form is like at home. We're going to use that confidence and go forward.”
Leicester, already cemented into the playoffs, can still earn a home semi-final with a win at Bath next Saturday, but this defeat felt like a momentum stopper. Leicester's head coach, Geoff Parling, said: “Our set piece wasn't good enough and we didn't take our chances.”
