Exeter coach Rob Baxter was delighted with his side's "tremendous endeavour" after they recorded a 19-11 win over London Irish.
The Devon side outscored the Exiles two tries to one as they continued to push hard for a semi-final spot.
Baxter said: "Every Premiership win is very important and hard fought so you take the points when you can.
"I thought we showed tremendous endeavour in this game but we also missed gilt-edged opportunities to score points.
"But those opportunities were there because we played well, we moved the ball around the pitch well, got into space well and kept possession very well. Most of our game held up to extremely high standards.
"We did miss a couple of opportunities to run in tries and we did fail to collect points through Ignacio Mieres' boot, which is quite unusual for us. I think if those had come off then it would have been a relatively comfortable win.
"But the fact that we still won kind of proves my point that if you go for things, you end up winning.
"London Irish have enough quality and enough game-breakers in their team to really hurt you, but we kept them out of the game by playing ourselves. We have just got to keep getting better and taking the opportunities."
Exeter have now suffered just one Premiership defeat since the turn of the year, with visits to Worcester Warriors and Saracens still to come either side of a home game against Northampton.
Baxter added: "I think that we can look towards a Heineken Cup place now because we would have to have a pretty poor run of games, and the results go the way for other teams, for people to go above us."
London Irish head coach Toby Booth also looked back on squandered chances, adding: "We can looked at missed opportunities having been inside their 22 three times in the last seven minutes and you have to come away with things.
"We went for broke and last week against Leicester it cost us, and it cost us again this week. If you said that you could get a losing bonus point away to Exeter you wouldn't have been too disappointed.
"But you are always a little disappointed when you've seen opportunities to get more.
"We need to be a little more clinical and manage the game better, but those are just the little margins.
"Again we are on the wrong side of the scoreline and that has happened too often. We've got to seriously look at it because it is not from the lack of effort, but I'm sure it will turn for us."
