Exeter prepared for court scrum if Premiership place is turned down

Exeter 41 - Otley 15

Exeter's six-try annihilation of Otley perfectly mirrored their determination and ambition off the field as they prepare for higher things.

Exeter's six-try annihilation of Otley perfectly mirrored their determination and ambition off the field as they prepare for higher things.

The mauling of the forwards, a team of huskies well mushed by the scrum-half, Haydn Thomas, produced four of their tries with prodigious driving, simultaneously reinforcing the impression that this is a true collective on and off the field.

There is certainly a steely resolve within the decaying walls of the County Ground, their home for 100-odd years, to take the club into the top flight, and if this performance is anything to go by, there is no obstacle the club cannot surmount.

Not even the "entry criteria" - aka the goalposts (or hurdles, depending on your sporting preference), which have been moved (or raised) whenever promotion has threatened to introduce an interloper into the top flight - laid down by England Rugby Ltd, a body comprising representatives of the Rugby Football Union and Premier Rugby Ltd which administers the Zurich Premiership.

Exeter are leading National League One, eight points clear of their nearest rivals, Bristol, a club the Premiership would be happy to welcome back into their cozy cabal. Bristol fulfil the entry criteria. Exeter do not. Not yet anyway.

It had been thought, since Exeter's £15m purpose-built stadium and conference centre alongside the M5 at junction 30 will not be ready for another 18 months, that they would pass up their chance of taking a place in the Premiership, were they to win National League One this season.

No chance. Otley may not want to taste the heady heights of the Premiership, but Exeter, from the president, Dick Manley, to the chief executive, Tony Rowe, the director of rugby, Ian Bremner and the commercial director, Mike Churcher, not to mention the Exeter legend John Baxter - father of Richard and Robert -and the rest of the board, the membership and the playing staff, most definitely do.

They have reached an agreement with Exeter City to share St James Park until the new stadium is completed. That news prompted a recent reminder from Twickenham, pointing out that the rugby club would not have primacy of tenure, a key element of the entry criteria and vital to ensure television coverage. On Wednesday auditors from ERL will be down to check out the facilities and see whether Exeter meet all the requirements.

But Exeter City, who are in the Nationwide Conference, do not own their ground. The local council does. And the local council has spent the past four years bending over backwards to help the rugby club find a site on which to build a new stadium.

"We have worked closely with them all the way through," says Rowe, a wealthy businessman and former Royal Marine. And he is confident that primacy of tenure will be granted to the rugby club.

There is still the problem of a stand-by ground, which has to be within a 30-mile radius. "Can you think of another stadium in Devon or Cornwall meeting the entry criteria?" Rowe asked. "Of course there isn't." But the absence of such a stadium is unlikely to deter Exeter. And if Twickenham uses it as a means to block their promotion to the top flight, should that come to pass, then the club is prepared to turn to the law.

Bremner, an articulate former physical education teacher, says: "We would not take lightly a refusal to enter the Premiership, with the work we have put in and with our plans - and remember, we would be moving to a very good facility for only one year. We would consult at the highest level to test the legal and ethical soundness of the principles on which the entry criteria are based."

They have to win promotion first, and their remaining six matches begin on Saturday with a rematch up at Otley, followed by tricky visits to Bristol, who have a game in hand, Coventry and Rotherham.

But the first hurdle would appear to be the audit and any subsequent wranglings with ERL. Compared with that the promotion run-in looks a lot less daunting, and, anyway, under the canny and cunning guidance of Bremner, the team should clear the necessary playing barriers.

Exeter: Tries G Staniforth, Liddington, Richard Baxter, Yapp 2, Davis; Conversions Yapp 4; Penalty Yapp. Otley: Tries Binns, Hall; Conversion Binns; Penalty Shuttleworth.

Exeter: G Staniforth (A Staniforth, 74); E Lewsey, A Fatialofa (S Kepu, h-t), S Ward, A Murdoch; A Yapp, H Thomas; R Liddington (K Brooking, 74), S Blythe, G Davis (D Porte, 62), C Bentley, Robert Baxter (capt; R Nathan 66), M Gabey (A Walker, 57), G Willis (A Miller, 66), Richard Baxter.

Otley: I Shuttleworth; K Dench (C Hall, 22), N Taylor, P Mooney (R Whatmuff, h-t), W Sovatabua; S Binns, D Scully (A Brown, 57); J Wring, D Sayers (M Luffman, 48), K Fullman, J Oakes, S Connor, J Tiffany (R Pike, 52), N Bland, M Stockdale.

Referee: T Beddow (Cheltenham).