Exeter Chiefs have announced their first pre-season side to take on Bristol Rugby at Sandy Park this Saturday.

Twelve new players feature in the extended 28-strong squad including kicking machine Gareth Steenson and the new centre partnership of Matt Cornwell and Bryan Rennie. The game will involve rolling substitutions.

Prop John Andress will also play in his first official game after successfully recovering from a broken leg.

The Chiefs face the Guinness Premiership outfit, who have been training at Exeter University this week and will also be playing in their first pre-season game this weekend. Chiefs supporters can expect to see some of Bristol’s superstars on show including England’s Shaun Perry and Wales international Robert Sidoli and a potential early return to Sandy Park for Junior Fatialofa.

Director of rugby Pete Drewett said today: “The great thing for us is that we have 49 players all capable of playing first team rugby. It makes selection very difficult. We will use this series of warm-up games to look at various combinations and then next weekend’s Cornish All Blacks games to help us select the kind of squad we want to play against Esher.

“You can only train for so long and then you desperately need to get games. It is great to have a side like Bristol coming down. They are just the sort of standard we need to play.

“Bristol will be bringing some of their full internationals and all of our great supporters will have missed coming down here so we are expecting a good day at Sandy Park on Saturday.”

Season ticket holders can watch this game free of charge as part of this season’s package. Other supporters can watch this game at reduced prices below:

Grandstand – Adults £15/U16s £6
South West Communications Group Stand – Adults £12/students £7/U16s £4
East Terrace - £10/students £5/U16s £1
Ground – Adults £10/students £5/U16s £1

Exeter Chiefs v Bristol Rugby
Saturday, August 16, 2008 – KO 3pm
Sandy Park

1. Dan Parkes
2. Neil Clark
3. John Andress
4. Lewis Stevenson
5. Dan Tuohy
6. Tom Johnson
7. Alan Miller
8. Richie Baxter ©
9. Clive Stuart-Smith
10. Gareth Steenson
11. Josh Drauniniu
12. Matt Cornwell
13. Bryan Rennie
14. Matt Jess
15. Gary Kingdom

16. Ben Moon
17. Simon Alcott
18. Chris Budgen
19. Chris Bentley
20. Kevin Barrett
21. Stephen Ward
22. Mark Fatialofa
23. Tom Skelding
24. Chris Cracknell
25. Richie Pugh
26. Andy Miller
27. Nic Sestaret
28. Emyr Lewis

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