Cornish Pirates

Exeter 9 Bristol 6

Exeter Chiefs claimed the advantage in the promotion race after a tense and edgy contest with Bristol at a packed Sandy Park.

Tries were in short supply as the trusty boots of Gareth Steenson and Adrian Jarvis provided the only points of the match.

Steenson gave Exeter the lead after 8 minutes as Bristol strayed offside but with nothing between the two teams Jarvis levelled in first half stoppage time as Tui Failed to roll away from a tackle.

With defences on top still in the second period Jarvis pushed Bristol ahead with his second penalty after 58 minutes as the Chiefs infringed at the scrum.

The Chiefs bounced back to level with a further Steenson penalty before both Luke Arscott and Tom Johnson were denied tries by the intervention of the television official.

Steenson snatched the lead back with a late penalty to give the Chiefs a slender lead to protect at the Memorial Ground next Wednesday.

Bristol Evening Post match report www.thisisbristol.co.uk

Bristol head coach Paul Hull said afterwards: "It's only half-time and we're effectively 3-0 down with our home leg to come.

"All in all, that's not a bad position to be in. I think it will be a packed house of more than 11,000 next Wednesday – and we've done well at home all year.

"I'm sure we can turn that three-point deficit around – and our supporters can play a massive part in that.

"They've been outstanding all season and you could hear them in the stands tonight. It's the last game of the season and we'll throw everything we've got into this last 80 minutes."

Full story www.thisisbristol.co.uk

Express & Echo match reportwww.thisisexeter.co.uk

Chiefs manager Robin Cowling said: "I think we've come out of it as we wanted, the pressure now is all on Bristol at home. We've beaten them once up there — we'll do it again.

"This is a final, home advantage means very little to be honest. It's like playing at Twickenham, you don't have things all your own way. Our crowd will be up there as well.

"We've shown we can cope with the occasion, that's the most important thing. The lads are in good shape still and we were playing rugby right to the end.

"We took a couple of gambles, you could criticise us for that, but we wanted to play rugby and put down a marker. Now we can go up there and put the real pressure on them."

Full story www.thisisexeter.co.uk

*The views expressed by High Tackle are his own.