Olly Woodburn double stuns Leicester as Exeter end Tigers’ unbeaten run at home

Exeter became the first away side to win in the league at Welford Road in 14 months as two tries from the veteran full-back Olly Woodburn delivered a terrific win for the Chiefs.

In material terms the win made little difference to Exeter – they still need to beat Saracens at home in their final game of the regular season to reach the playoffs next weekend. But they will go into the Sandy Park shootout with belief coursing through them after storming the Tigers’ lair.

The victory was an illustration of how 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 10. Now, his charges are within touching distance of a semi-final.

To have any hope of beating the Tigers on their own patch, you have to mess with their mojo and Exeter went about that by knocking them back with some punishing defence around the ruck and disrupting their set-piece foundations. When they had the ball they went at Leicester.

Manny Feyi-Waboso, back in the Exeter starting lineup, carved Leicester apart to set up the first try of the game, fielding a clearance kick in his own half before surging through the Tigers’ defence to put Woodburn in for the score in the seventh minute. The powerful wing, missed by England in the Six Nations, has an incredible ability to make yards through contact but on this occasion there was none as the waves parted for him.

Leicester hit back six minutes later with a try for the scrapbook from 20-year-old academy full-back George Pearson who picked up Orlando Bailey’s left-footed chip to score on his first Prem start.

Bailey looked to have set another up for Adam Radwan after evading Stephen Varney and offloading one-handed but some tremendous defence by Henry Slade held up the flying wing over the line.

Ollie Hassell-Collins, on the left wing, should have been put in by Pearson before the break too but the full-back’s pass went astray and Exeter escaped. However, a bulldozing Leicester scrum earned them another shot at the Chiefs as the half drew to a close and Bailey put over his third penalty to give them a 14-13 interval lead.

Len Ikitau holds off Adam Radwan to score for Exeter at Welford Road. Photograph: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK/Shutterstock

It was ferocious stuff all round with Tommy Reffell a menace at the breakdown for Leicester and every area of the game a contest.

Exeter regained the lead three minutes into the second half with a try started and finished by their Wallabies. Tom Hooper burst up the middle to make the dent and Len Ikitau dived over in the left-hand corner from the next phase.

Ikitau, so impressive against the Lions, is into his stride now having missed four months of the season with a shoulder injury and it took a terrific cover tackle from Hanro Liebenberg, making his 150th Leicester appearance, to stop him going over again.

It was Ikitau’s ball inside which gave Woodburn – the 34-year-old into his second decade at Sandy Park – his second try in the 54th minute as Exeter stretched into a 25-14 lead.

Woodburn was sent to the sin-bin just before the hour mark for a deliberate knock on as he tackled Bailey as Leicester upped the ante. Jack van Poortvliet blew a golden opportunity with an awful pass to the unmarked Radwan with the line at the wing’s mercy but Olly Cracknell made no mistake from short range as the game ticked into the final quarter.

It was pretty much all Tigers at this point and when Radwan’s overarm pass put Charlie Clare over Leicester had a one-point lead with 10 minutes left. However, Exeter dug deep and hit back to go over again with six minutes left through second row Andrea Zambonin who handed off Bailey to go in at the corner.

Slade converted from the touchline and added an injury-time penalty to take his individual contribution to 15 points and deprive the Tigers of a losing bonus point.

Leicester, already cemented into the playoffs, can still earn a home semi-final with a win at Bath next weekend but this defeat felt like a momentum stopper.