EXETER Chiefs must be so wishing this season's Championship was being played under the old first-past-the-post format.

Saturday's hard-earned 20-11 victory at Bedford was their ninth on the trot, and with Nottingham and London Welsh both suffering surprising defeats, they are now seven points clear at the top of the table.

In previous seasons, excitement levels would be rapidly growing about a side who have won two or more games than all of their rivals so far.

However, under this crazy new format devised by the Rugby Football Union, where no points are carried forward from the regular season into the play-offs, they are currently no better off really than, for example, the fifth-placed Cornish Pirates.

All Exeter can do is keep winning their matches, and hope to goodness they are still doing so come the crucial business end of the season, when a place in the Guinness Premiership will then be up for grabs.

If nothing else, victories at places like Bristol and Bedford are enabling them to build up a strong psychological advantage, should they need to return to such tough venues in the final two months of the season.

Saturday's game was by no means a classic, with plenty of errors on both sides, but the Chiefs gritted it out in impressive fashion, showing they are becoming a very difficult side to beat, be it at Sandy Park or on the road.

They are stifling their opponents' attacking capabilities with some superb defensive work, scoring some good tries of their own and, in Gareth Steenson, they have a very reliable goalkicker who will, more often than not, punish indiscretions and help buy his team-mates a bit of breathing space in very tight matches.

Exeter head coach Rob Baxter said: "Bedford is a difficult place to go and win, and not a lot of teams manage it. We built this up to be a big game in the squad, for various reasons. We wanted it to be a pressure game for us, so we can get used to playing in difficult environments and difficult situations, because that is what is going to happen at the end of the season.

"I think we have come through a really tough old battle. It wasn't a perfect game of rugby by any means, both sides made mistakes, but that will happen in a big pressure game at the end of the season.

"The bench again made a very positive impact, and in the last five or ten minutes, we were the team throwing away try-scoring opportunities, rather than Bedford.

"If there is a negative from the game for us, we will probably look at why we didn't convert some of our line breaks, but with Nottingham and London Welsh losing, whatever the league is about this season, we seem to be dealing with it pretty well, so bring on next week."

Exeter had the benefit of the Goldington Road slope in the first half and put a forward stranglehold on the Blues, who adopted some bizarrely negative tactics, seemingly content on a damage limitation exercise in the hope they could turn things around in the second period.

Bedford rarely got near Exeter's 22 and the pressure exerted by the visitors eventually led to close-range tries from scrum-half Haydn Thomas and flanker James Scaysbrook in the space of eight minutes around the half-hour mark, both converted by Steenson for a 14-0 lead.

Bedford lost tight-head prop Phil Boulton to the sin-bin in the 40th minute, but they strangely seemed to play better with only 14 men, and former Plymouth Albion full-back James Pritchard kicked a penalty either side of half-time to cut the gap to eight points.

With the slope now in their favour and restored to a full complement of players, the Blues then piled into attack, and were rewarded with a try in the left-hand corner by centre Ollie Dodge, and even though Pritchard missed the difficult touchline conversion, they were suddenly only 14-11 adrift.

The remainder of the second half was a titanic struggle for supremacy, but Steenson eased the pressure on Exeter with a 72nd-minute penalty, and he struck again in the fourth minute of injury time to ensure Chiefs' fine unbeaten record remained intact for another week.