Exeter Chiefs centre Ian Whitten has urged his teammates to remain positive in order to return to winning ways.

The Sandy Park outfit suffered a cruel, last-second defeat at the hands of London Irish last weekend in what was their fourth loss on the bounce.

Despite this, Whitten is confident that his side can regain some momentum as they prepare to resume their European Challenge Cup campaign this weekend.

"It's been a disappointing few weeks with a couple of really tight losses," the 27-year-old is quoted as saying by Planet Rugby. "But we know that we ourselves have got to just keep working and fighting hard and the results will come back our way.

"It's not as though we have been training badly or anything like that. We've just got to stay confident in ourselves as we know we're a good side. We won eight games in a row earlier in the season and we know we can do that again.

"I don't know why we've started losing these games by narrow margins. You can search and search for reasons as to why it's happening, but sometimes you over-think it and get down on yourself. That lowers your confidence, so the lesson we've got to learn is to just to think positively and really encourage each other out there. If we come together now and fight hard for everything, we can lift ourselves out of this spell."

Whitten has featured in all but one of the Chiefs' Aviva Premiership games this campaign.