In their first outing of 2016, Rob Baxter’s side suffered only their second league defeat of the season as they went down 8-3 at Franklin’s Gardens.

On a disappointing afternoon for the visitors, the one small crumb of comfort they could take from their trip to the East Midlands was the crucial losing bonus point accrued thanks to Gareth Steenson’s late penalty.

Although defeated, the Chiefs maintained second spot in the table behind unbeaten leaders Saracens, who extended their lead to six points having collected maximum reward from their home encounter with Leicester Tigers.

Next up for the Chiefs, however, is the visit of the Cherry & Whites who, incidentally, were the last side to win at Sandy Park just over 12 months ago.

 “I know it’s a cliche, but the Premiership keeps rolling on,” said Rimmer following Friday’s defeat. “Gloucester is already in everybody’s mind and that is what we have to move on to. We’ll take the point from today, go home, and look to get back to winning ways at Sandy Park.

“As a team the worse thing you can do is dwell on losses, that’s not what you want in your mindset going into a new Premiership game. Come Monday we’ll address things, take what we can, and just get ourselves ready to go again.”

Certainly the Chiefs will not look to reflect too much on their latest outing, but a much-improved performance after the break will give them a solid foundation from which to build ahead of the Gloucester encounter.

'It wasn’t the best, not was it the worst,” admitted the Exeter prop. “To come away to Northampton on a hard day and in tough conditions is never easy. To get the bonus point certainly wasn’t what we set out to do because we’re an ambitious side who wanted to come here and win, but we got it, we’ll take it, and now we’ll go home and look to make Sandy Park a fortress again.

“Yes it was tough out there because we were playing a tough side, who were giving as much as they could and who were desperate for a win. They were at home and this is where they want to set their stall out, plus they are a team who want to compete in the top four and win the Premiership, so it was never going to be easy.

“I’m sure when we look at the video again we will see there were certain opportunities out there we could have taken, but it was not to be today.”