Top four is our target - Thomas

Despite suffering back-to-back defeats, Haydn Thomas sees no reason why Exeter Chiefs cannot reach the Aviva Premiership semi-finals.

The Sandy Park outfit lost away against Sale Sharks and Bath over the Christmas period, but start 2015 with a home derby against Gloucester in front of a capacity crowd on Saturday (4:30pm).

They go into the match fourth in the table and Thomas, who is poised to make his 200th competitive appearance for the club against his former employers, believes they can stay there.

“I thought we could have played a bit better on our attack last week and that let them off the hook a little bit,” the 32-year-old said of the defeat at Bath.

“Credit to them, they played well and pressurised us a lot in the last 20 minutes, but there were some good bits to last week, such as how we turned up and brought our A-game.

“If you take check of where we are, we’ve played everybody in the league and we’re in a good place and if we can back up the first half of the season there’s no reason why we can’t be in that top four come Premiership final time in May.”

The Chiefs have only lost once at home this season and will be keen to keep their winning run going. But they will face a Gloucester side who need a victory themselves after also losing their last two league matches.

“They’ve had a couple of tough results, they’ve lost at home and they’ll come back a different team,” warned Thomas. “There were some questions asked of the (Gloucester) squad and I’m sure they’ll come here all guns blazing.

“They have got a good team with some very experienced players and if you put all that together they are going to click at some point. That’s why we’ve got to put a really good performance in and make sure we’re better than last week.

“It’s a game that as a player you want to be involved in, with the great atmosphere of Sandy Park and hopefully it should be a good occasion.”

Thomas has been on the bench for the last seven Premiership games and is expected to be in the match-day 23 again this weekend. That should see him reach 200 matches for the club he joined as a student in 2003 from Bath.

Thomas said: “It will be a great milestone and an achievement I’ll look back and be immensely proud of. It’s a great club and I’ve enjoyed every minute, from when I was at the County Ground to the present day.”

However, despite moving from the crumbling old ground in St Thomas to the modern Sandy Park in 2006, and winning promotion to the top flight in 2010, Thomas said the ethos that pervaded the club when he arrived all those years ago remains to this day.

“When I first arrived at the County Ground the camaraderie was really strong, with Rob and Richie (Baxter) and the likes of Tony Yapp and Keith Brooking,” said University of Exeter graduate Thomas. “As soon as you were there you were made to feel very welcome.

“It was a really enjoyable place to be, as it is now, and everybody worked really hard because we all wanted success.

“At the time we had a really good two seasons when I was first here and it hasn’t really changed, everybody enjoys themselves, works really hard, everybody is ambitious and an Exeter Chief is a very good person.

He continued: “I remember the County Ground and the state of the pitch – Richie Baxter was the groundsman at the time. The changing rooms were an absolute disgrace – half the pitch used to come into the changing room and the showers used to just about work.

“Even at Sandy Park, from when I arrived back in 2009 to where it’s come and how the club has moved on professionally is incredible.

“It shows how far the club’s come. Look at the A game on Monday night when we had 3,500 people – we were getting that for a Championship game back in 2009 and now we’ve got a sell-out of 12,500 against a local rival.

“It’s going to be buzzing and really exciting. It’s a game that as a player you want to be involved in, with the great atmosphere of Sandy Park and hopefully it should be a good occasion.”