The gulf between the top French sides and the Premiership’s lower reaches grows wider by the week. First Toulouse and now Bordeaux have travelled to Exeter this season and been so markedly superior that a boxing referee would have stopped the fight long before the end. This was not even the visitors’ strongest team and it still resulted in a record drubbing.
There was never much chance of this rebuilding Chiefs squad punching above its weight in this season’s Champions Cup anyway but they finished an embarrassingly distant second against opponents who exuded attacking class all day and could go deep in the competition if their key men stay fit and the Six Nations does not stall their momentum.
