MOMENTUM wins games, which is why, after a nervous start, the Chiefs ran in seven tries to Park's one and took the five points on offer with relative ease.

A bit of luck in the opening minutes could have given the Tigers the earliest of leads and maybe set a pattern for the rest of the game.

But luck seems to be one of the things missing from their kit bags at the moment, along with decision making and tackling.

The Chiefs returned Sedgley's kick-off with one of their own, which went straight into fullback Jon Feeley's grateful arms.

A shimmy, followed by a couple of side steps, allied to a lightning turn of speed saw him cut through the Chiefs' defence and emerge on the right wing, where he off-loaded to stand-off Phil Jones, but he was held up inches short of the line.

Within minutes from a successful scrum 15 metres out from the Chiefs' line on the left, Jones launched an ambitious diagonal cross-field punt to the right corner, Hall raced down the touchline, palmed the ball back inside, but it was knocked-on with the try line beckoning.

Had these two moves resulted in tries, the Tigers may well have gone on to emerge with a positive result.

As it turned out the try they did score was merely a consolation, as the Chiefs' back line, in particular left winger Gary Kingdom, proved ruthless with the ball in hand, particularly in the face of some powder-puff one-on-one challenges.

Their first touchdown arrived on 10 minutes when, from a lineout just inside their own half, they spun the ball from right to left, and Kingdom showed his pace to outstrip Hall and Feeley, with the prodigious Tony Yapp converting.

Three minutes later a 39-metre Jones penalty reduced the arrears to 7-3. But from that point it was all Exeter.

From the re-start Feeley sliced his return kick and from the resulting 15-metre lineout the Chiefs caught and drove before moving the ball into the centre, where Kingdom popped up and exploited a gap to go in between the Sedgley's posts to give Yapp the easiest of conversions.

For a while the Tigers kept it tight and competed well, particularly in the forwards, but a lineout win by the home side 15 metres out saw the Chiefs spin the ball from left to right.

This time fullback Adam Staniforth joined the line at pace and crossed for the five points, although once more he was helped by some ineffective Park tackling. Yapp added the extras to make it 21-3 to the Chiefs after 33 minutes.

They claimed the bonus point with try number four, seconds before the half-time whistle, when Number 8 Richard Baxter touched down in the right-hand corner, following a pick-and-go from a five-metre scrum.

Yapp supplied the extra points to make it 28-3 as the teams turned around.

An injury to Feeley three minutes after the re-start robbed the Tigers of some pace at the back, and five minutes later Exeter used the momentum built up in the first half and drove the ball 45 metres, before Kingdom went on and to grab his hat-trick try on the right, rounding off a rolling maul to stretch the home side's lead to 33-3.

However, the Tigers rallied and from a scrum on half-way scrum-half Chris Wilkinson raced down centre field with the forwards in close support.

Jon Skurr continued the move, taking the ball to within two metres of the Chiefs' line, and from the rolling maul hooker Richard Oxley burst over to grab a lifeline for his side, helped by Jones' conversion.

But the Chiefs snuffed out any hopes of a comeback with two further touchdowns.

Replacement lock Mark Gabey used his size and power to barrel over from close range following a quick tap penalty, before Kingdom took his tally for the afternoon to four, following some intense pressure.

Consistency is just one aspect missing from the Tigers' game plan at the moment, one of the others is luck, something that is difficult to rectify. Effective tackling, however, is not.

SEDGLEY: Feeley (De Jager 43), Hall, Woof, Voortman, Hopkinson (J. Albinson 70), Jones, Wilkinson, Gazzola (Roberts 51), Oxley (Keys - 69), Evans (Du Plessis 65), Rowe, Lund, Senior (Skurr 51), Ponton, Anania (Fourie 51).

l Sedgley have a free day this weekend, due to the Powergen Trophy. The following week, Saturday December 3, Plymouth Albion are the visitors to Park Lane.

PETER COLLINS