Pre-season friendlies | Wins for Exeter, Leicester and Bath while Harlequins and Sharks fall short

With just three weeks until the new Gallagher Premiership Rugby season begins, clubs’ pre-season preparations have gone into overdrive.

From Somerset to Corsica teams were out flexing their muscles in their first pre-season fixtures and here is how they fared.

Offiah score helps Bath to victory against Munster 

A familiar name was on the scoresheet for Bath Rugby as Tyler Offiah, son of rugby league legend and former Wasps wing Martin, dotted down in the West Country club’s 24-21 win over Munster Rugby.

It was a highly competitive affair at the Recreation Ground as the United Rugby Championship side came to the West Country.

Munster took the lead in the sixth minute through John Hodnett, but fought back with tries from academy products Austin Emens and Jasper Sandler.

Conceding the lead again before the break, quickfire scored from Jaco Coetzee and Offiah handed last season’s runners-up the win in their first 2024/25 outing.

Chiefs secure back-to-back wins at Sandy Park

There was a double-header of Exeter Chiefs fixtures at Sandy Park on Saturday afternoon, with Rob Baxter’s men overcoming Championship clubs London Scottish and Cornish Pirates in quick succession.

A series of new faces got their first outing for the Devon side over the two matches.

First up was London Scottish, who were dispatched 45-19 thanks to tries from Ben Hammersley, Nick Lilley, Jack Yeandle, Kane James and Jimmy Roots.

In the second fixture, Chiefs made it 90 points for the day thanks to their 46-24 win against South West rivals Cornish Pirates.

A completely changed squad ran riot, with Paul Brown-Bampoe registering a hat-trick for the hosts in front of nearly 8,000 supporters.

Registering eight tries in total, Jacques Vermeulen, Zack Wimbush, Olly Woodburn, Will Ring and Lucas Dorrell all crashed over the whitewash to double the grins on Exeter supporters’ faces.

Leicester overcome Nottingham in East Midlands clash

Michael Cheika’s first game at the helm of Leicester Tigers could not have gone better at Mattioli Woods Welford Road as the club beat Nottingham 38-17.

With less than 10 minutes played Josh Bassett had opened the scoring, with Charlie Clare, Olly Cracknell and Sam Williams all scoring for the hosts before the break.

In the second half, Tigers continued to press forward to a dominant victory, as England wing Ollie Hassell-Collins did not hesitate to extend his team’s lead and academy centre Charlie Myall made it over the try line to complete a rousing win in late summer.

Quins fall short to Montpellier in Corsica

Harlequins lost 38-27 in a highly competitive outing against Top 14 club Montpellier at the Stade Armand Cesari in Corsica.

Going blow-for-blow with their hosts in the Mediterranean, 30 Quins players were used over the course of 80 minutes as the team dotted down four times.

Promising young wing Cassius Cleaves, flanker Will Evans, hooker Nathan Jibulu and Hayden Hyde were the scorers, but could not hold out a rampant Montpellier side.

Sharks beaten by Connacht 

Connacht beat Sale Sharks 21-5 in their opening pre-season outing.

Travelling to Galway for the clash, the hosts had the better of play from the start and scored tries through Dylan Tierney-Martin and Conor Oliver to lead 14-0 at the break.

There was a shoot of hope in the 54th minute for the North West club when Will Addison and Tumy combined to send Waisea Nayacalevu across the try line.

Unable to build on that try, with Ben Murphy’s score ending the contest on the Irish coast.