Exeter head coach Rob Baxter took plenty more away from Sandy Park than the Aviva Premiership double over Northampton thanks to yesterday’s victory.

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The Chiefs moved back into the top four in the league standings while the defeat means Saints missed out on guaranteeing a place in the play-offs.

The sides were evenly matched at the break after Henry Slade had put the Chiefs in front with a penalty, but the England prospect was unable to convert Phil Dollman’s touchdown while James Wilson crossed for the Saints who trailed 8-5.

 Slade added two penalties and the conversion of a penalty try in the second half while the Saints had to settle for a late consolation try from Jamie Elliott.

After the victory, Baxter said: “It was all about collecting some important league points because everyone has been saying that we have had the toughest run-in for the last five or six games –which is probably true – but that makes for some great games.

“No doubt Northampton will feel slightly different but if you look at the first half it was cat and mouse but we probably didn’t make the most of the conditions; mainly because we didn’t force that scrum pressure into being a try.

“But I think that we grew as the game went on and we did do well in the forward exchanges – there is no getting away from that – and ultimately that pressure counts for a lot. Defensively we did everything different that we did at Leicester a couple of weeks ago where we made it very hard for Northampton to score – there wasn’t a lot of easy penalties given up.”

Elsewhere, Sale suffered a surprise 25-23 defeat to London Irish at the Madejski Stadium.

Sale remain in seventh but they lost valuable ground on their closest rivals as they continued their miserable run in Reading, where they have failed to win since 2006.

Tom Arscott, who touched down twice, and Mike Haley were Sale’s try scorers with fly-half Danny Cipriani kicking two penalties and a conversion.

Irish responded with three tries through Alex Lewington, who dotted down twice, and Andrew Fenby with Chris Noakes adding two penalties and two conversions.

Tom Varndell helped himself to a hat-trick against London Welsh as Wasps won away from home in the Premiership for the first time in 2015 to keep their top-six hopes alive. They claimed a 40-13 win over Welsh with tries from Varndell, Ashley Johnson, Sailosi Tagicakibau and Alapati Leiua.