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Unstoppable Gloucester put Exeter to the sword
The Guardian
|April 28, 2025
Premiership beatings do not come much heavier than this record-breaking West Country derby annihilation. There was nowhere for Exeter to hide on this bright but brutal day in Gloucestershire as a rampant home side rattled up 13 tries to revitalise their ambitions of making the playoffs and inflict the heaviest defeat in the visitors' top-division history.
It would have been a proper cricket score had Gloucester not missed half a dozen conversions and it was all but inevitable from an early stage that Exeter's previous widest losing margin of 43 points would be blown away. Being booed by the Shed is one thing, hearing laughter ring around the ground is another.
The club's chairman, Tony Rowe, could be seen laying down the line in the away dressing room after the game, clearly stung by this non-performance from a team theoretically building for next season. "That was my worst day as a coach," said the head coach, Rob Hunter, part of the backroom staff who helped Exeter win the European and domestic double just five years ago. "It's in no way acceptable for us to perform like that and we haven't tried to hide away from that in the changing room.
This story is from the April 28, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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