Home semi-final is big incentive - TJ

Tom Johnson says the lure of earning a home semi-final is a big incentive for Exeter Chiefs’ players this week.

The England flanker played his first senior game of the season in last Sunday’s 37-32 win against Newport Gwent Dragons.

That saw the Chiefs become the first side to reach the last four of the LV= Cup, but they need a win against Saracens in the final round of group matches to ensure they play the tie at Sandy Park.

Johnson, who had a neck operation earlier this season, is hoping to get some more game time this weekend.

The 32-year-old and his teammates are eager to return to the final of the competition they won last season, and knows a home tie in the semis will help their cause.

“There’s another carrot at the end of this weekend’s game, not just going up there knowing we’ve already qualified, but a home semi-final would go a long way to helping our cause to push on to the final,” said Johnson. “We want to make it as easy as we can on ourselves, and that means turning up in training and making sure we get all the details right to go and push Saracens as hard as we can.”

Johnson, one of six players in Exeter’s squad to have played more than 100 league games for the club, said the players did not get too caught up in talk of the semi-finals last week.

Bath’s 23-21 away win on Saturday meant a win for the Chiefs at Rodney Parade would be enough to ensure they reached the knockout stages.

Despite making 14 changes, the visitors had enough to get over the line, and Johnson hopes the same players will be given a chance to feature again at Allianz Park on Sunday.

“It was great to get the semi-final,” he said. “We didn’t really speak much about it last week because it was a new bunch of boys and we just wanted to focus on ourselves.

“The boys all trained really well last week and worked really hard during the game so hopefully it’s a similar squad, it would be well justified. We’ll just concentrate on ourselves again as it worked well last week and make sure we’re all up to speed and ready to go.”

Johnson was pleased to get out on the pitch in a first-team game again.

“It was great fun,” he said of playing last weekend. “It was good to play against Bath in the A League about a month ago but it’s great to be back playing and enjoying playing rugby after a fair while off.”