Exeter 7-20 BristolBears top table as Exeter suffer second league loss in a rowBeauty is in the eye of the beholder, but few onlookers would have found this top-of-the-table clash more absorbing than Bath v Wasps the previous evening. All, that is, except Eddie Jones, who may well have regarded this as a telling yardstick of the new year form of a few of his potential national squad candidates.
Jones, it seems, was not among those who relished the free-wheeling 11-try bonanza at the Rec on Friday – “terrible” was the
England head coach’s disapproving verdict – and this altogether grittier contest was indeed closer in spirit to the trench warfare of the Autumn Nations Cup. On a cold, raw afternoon, it was certainly one to separate the fair-weather types from the tough nuts.