IN HIS SIXTH year down in Devon, Ian Whitten is a part of the furniture in Exeter, you just wouldn’t know it by his accent.
Like a saw on wood, he lets those deep Lisburn tones fall out as he chats in the expansive rooms that back up the stands in Exeter’s Sandy Park.
Retaining that strong accent undoubtedly has a lot to do with the close contact he has kept with home. Exeter and the Jurassic Coast to the east are an attractive prospect for any visitor who senses there might be a bed for the night at Whitten’s. And the rugby isn’t bad either with the Chiefs averaging 35 at home in the Premiership this season.
“Yeah, nobody came down for this one,” the 30-year-old laughs, “because they’re all going next week.
“They come over all the time. Last year was great, the semi-final and final of a Premiership, so there was a few over for that.”
He’s excited about the prospect of playing in front of those familiar faces on Saturday, when hostilities are renewed against Leinster in the Champions Cup. Entering the Aviva Stadium will be a nice completion of a circle in Whitten’s career. So much has changed since since he last laced up his boots on Lansdowne Road – for one, the ground was still called Lansdowne Road.
“Oh, it’ll be special for me. I played a club game at the old Lansdowne Road for Queen’s University, so I did,“ the Ulster native recalls.
“We played Wanderers, I think we got absolutely stuffed… I remember the wee clubhouses at the end.”
The 30-year-old laughs at the surprised reactions that he’s been around long enough to experience both versions of the Irish rugby’s HQ.
“Yeah, I’ve been round a long time. Feels that way now as well, so it does.”
Whitten is in remarkably good form considering the circumstances. This brief skip down memory lane comes less than an hour after the Chiefs were eventually undone 8 – 18 by Leinster. That, rather than his age, is the primary reason why he says he’s feeling old, the intensity of the clash is weighing him down.
“We went through 50 phases and didn’t score, they went through 50 phases and scored,” is his initial summary of the match, as succinct a match report as you could hope for. Accurate too, bar the phase count
“Those boys travel well, they’re always going to turn up here and put in a good performance. We knew that, we knew we had to start well.
“It was disappointing we didn’t get that, but then we fought well. We were in the game and let it go a wee bit at the end, dropped a couple of balls, let them get territory and then, fair play to them, 44 phases or whatever it was to score that try.
“That’s good balls, like.”
Indeed, but the Chiefs aren’t lacking in stones either. And they will have spent this week figuring out how to exact a brand of vengeance to cancel out the four point advantage Leinster took home in round 3.
They have easy go-to sources of confidence too.
“Generally, when we’ve lost games we haven’t panicked. We talk sensibly about what we need to get better.
“There’s still good belief in ourselves. We’re top of the Premiership, went away to Montpellier and won. There’s a bit of belief there we can take from what we’ve done this year already – the end of last year as well.”
He adds: “I hope we can take a bit of confidence from the game. We had them under pressure, scored a good try in the second half to level things up.
“Probably in the first half we didn’t take our opportunities and put the heat on them. We lost the kick battle at times, we need to improve that and we need to look tactically at what we’re doing there.
“But there’s good signs for us. Like, it was a close game, although we didn’t get a losing bonus point it was a close game. It felt to me like it was close anyway.
“If we can make it tight next week maybe we can come out the right side of it”
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