Tom Johnson: "Upsetting the odds is something us Chiefs all enjoy in the Premiership"

Not too many people would have expected us to beat Harlequins on their patch last Saturday, but we like doing what we're not supposed to do at Chiefs.

Harlequins were top of the Premiership, they have been in the top four for a number of years. They were expected to win, and that's just because of the reputation they've built.

If the favourites lose on any given weekend, the reaction is always going to be that the underdogs stole a victory.

That's fair enough. But it's something we have to try and get rid of, really, because we don't want to always be the underdogs in these games.

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That said, we have had a horrendous run of results, but we also turned that around, put a few things right against London Welsh and then all the boys stepped up and put in a performance against Quins.

Everyone, from the players to the physios and coaches, you have to be so pleased for all of them.

We've always thought on our day we can beat anyone in the league. And, apart from Bath, we have done that, so we must be able to.

A lot of it is about self-belief, but also we have a great belief in our game-plan that we have in place – and that's just working at the moment. Within that, against Quins, Gareth Steenson and Haydn Thomas were just really controlling the game well. And it was also good to see Damian Welch going over, he's been on fire for the past couple of weeks.

When the opportunities arose, we were just playing really clever rugby. We kicked for the corners and pinned them back. I think, in the second half, we pretty much played all in their half.

From a tactical point of view, that sort of thing is huge, both from the point of view of how they are feeling and how we would have been feeling.

Especially the forwards, they love playing in the right area. They don't want to be going from one 22 to the other all the time. They like to camp and put the pressure on.

The backs would say that they also like the see the forwards going forward because that means we'll be producing good ball for them. For us, it's more about being in the right area and having prolonged periods there.

Suddenly, from being knackered, you have a bit more energy, so psychologically it's a good place to be in as well.

I personally think it's so important to get the whole game week right, not just turning up on Saturday, but getting everything right from the Monday.

It can depend on how the game has gone at the weekend. Sometimes it will be light and light-hearted, others it will have much more intensity.

Rob Baxter's very good on this, we don't tend to smash each other to bits in the week, unless we've had a game where we've missed a lot of tackles – in which case we'll be tackling each other in the week.

We've done a lot of work on defending in recent weeks, and you'd have to say that's been paying off.

The trouble is, after a great result such as ours at Quins, now we have a tricky two-week break. I think, if we'd just been able to carry on, the results might have gone our way.

But, at the same time, you have to re-set yourself when you get the chance to reset yourself. You can't just keep bludgeoning through.

Rob's very good about letting the players have time off and all the boys who are fit have got a week off now.

They will have the chance to refresh their minds, but they are going to have to make sure that, when they get back, they switch back on again, and get back to that same mental level where they left off against Quins.

The boys in rehab are all still going in, though, for our six hours a day. That's totally as it should be. We want to get back fit, so there's no point us having time off.

I've been on the Alter-G for the past couple of days in Taunton, thanks to the Royal Marines. It's a zero-gravity running machine, for which you climb into this sort of bubble. Basically it allows you to run on less than your full body weight.

I've been on 50 per cent and now 75 per cent, which has allowed me to get used to running again. A lot of our conditioning coaches are Marines, but it's still very good of them to let us use it.