It always pays to get your complaints in first, especially if you are feeling guilty of being below par yourself. Harlequins and Exeter both came away from this dissatisfied and if it ended up being Quins who got their complaint in first, it was only because they held their press conference 12 minutes before Exeter held theirs.

"The breakdown was an absolute disaster," said Conor O'Shea, Harlequins' director of rugby. "There were people not rolling away, people diving over the top. One split second is enough for a defence to realign."

Then in walked Rob Baxter, Exeter's head coach. "When you've got big periods of pressure," he said, "and there are Harlequins front-five forwards playing at fly-half in your team, it does start to get frustrating. I'm not happy at all about how the game was officiated. I feel there were a number of inaccuracies. I find it strange how we get penalised at an attacking five-metre scrum, our put-in, and then the very next scrum, when it's outside the 22, Harlequins get penalised. We were on the front foot for pretty much the whole game."

Ah, the poor referee. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. The truth is that this was one of those games caught between the World Cup and the European Cups. Neither side brought their best game. Exeter, as you might expect, seemed to pour more of themselves into it and they certainly dominated most of the second half, during which they held a 13-9 lead for a few minutes. They might also have expected to take more than nothing from two incisive raids in the first half, the second of which was defused by that penalty at the five-metre scrum.

Harlequins were not at their best, bloated from the try glut that has characterised their unbeaten run at the start of this season. They led 9-0 at the break without having done an awful lot more than free their dangerous outside backs for a couple of gallops in that nothing zone between the 22s. But the way they responded when Exeter scored all of their 13 points in eight minutes early in the second half was impressive.

They proceeded to score 10 in three, and there wasn't a lot of arguing with any of them, based as they were on speed of thought, foot and hand. Just the kind of qualities Exeter need to tease out from their solid foundations, so that reward for their dominance is not the responsibility of a referee.

So Quins' unbeaten start to the season goes on. That's nine from nine and seven from seven in the Premiership, which they lead from Saracens, the champions, by four points.

And before we move on to competitions and adventures new, an old refrain. The World Cup is over, but let's just say this one last time, just for old times' sake. Nick Evans. How easily might New Zealand have won that precious gold trophy with him at the helm. Another 14 points were garnered here, a faultless five from five. He was not at his best, like his team, but he extracts maximum points from minimum opportunity, and thus do Harlequins. If you had been an All Blacks coach, you would have done whatever it took to get him back for that one competition.

Harlequins Brown; Stegmann, Lowe, Turner-Hall, Smith; Evans, Dickson; Marler, Brooker (Gray, 49), Johnston, Kohn, Robson, Robshaw, Wallace (Fa'asavalu, 49), Easter.

Try Brown Con Evans Pens Evans 4.

Exeter Chiefs Arscott; Rennie, Naqelevuki, Shoemark (Tatupu, 44), Jess; Mieres, Thomas (Barrett, 16); Sturgess (Moon, 75), Whitehead (Clark, 60), Andress (Tui, 46), Hayes, Hanks (Bentley, 75), Johnson (White, 64), Scaysbrook, Baxter.

Try Rennie Con Mieres Pens Mieres 2.

Referee S Davey (Sussex) Attendance 12,395.