PLAYING our promotion predecessors in Exeter was always going to be a tough test.

Previous to our arrival at Sandy Park the Chiefs had lost their last two home games against Sarries and Gloucester.

We turned up looking to back up our win over Bath and keep our push on up the table.

Exeter showed an intent to play in the first-half, moving the ball wide from the set-piece and keeping possession well. It was a good test for our defence which managed to cling on and prevent our try-line being breached.

Our pack matched the Chiefs’ forwards blow for blow. Having identified this as their main strength, the boys fronted up extremely well, dismantling their line-out drive and competing well at the scrum.

Jake Abbott, who was an early replacement after Matt Kvesic was injured, put in a great shift and seemed to be everywhere on the park at once.

His work-rate and breakdown skills provided a good platform for us to build on.

I would like to wish Matt a speedy recovery and we all hope to see him back out on the pitch soon.

The left boots of Joe Carlisle and Errie Claassens pinned Exeter back in their own half well but our kicking accuracy dropped off in the second-half.

With both our defence and Exeter’s working well, the game would be decided by the smallest margins.

Our penalty count throughout was fairly even but we conceded them in more kickable positions.

Going into the last few moments 15-6 down, we had to make sure we went home with something and the effort in the final minutes was superb.

We kept hold of the ball for more than three minutes, eventually forcing a penalty to secure a bonus point.

The journey back up the M5 is never nice but losing makes it much worse. The margins we play in are so small and all credit to Exeter, they played the game slightly smarter than us.

We look forward to returning the favour when we meet again at Sixways.

We can see by Exeter, who in comparison to ourselves will be third at Christmas, how tight this league is.

Sitting in 11th, it is easy to dwell on what could have been and where we should be placed.

I can assure you, though, we are very much looking up as opposed to over our shoulder. We will begin our climb up the table on December 27 in front of a full house against Leicester Tigers.

Between now and then, we have back-to-back fixtures against Bucharest Wolves in the Amlin Challenge Cup.

These next two matches are not only great opportunities to develop our attacking abilities but it is key that we keep ourselves in touch with Stade Francais in our group.

Wolves will be a huge physical test and at their home ground we can look forward to a real battle.

Bucharest provides a chance for some of the fringe players to put their hands up for Premiership selection. I will be holding mine as high as I can.