London Welsh’s exceptional renaissance reveals no signal of stopping. On Saturday, the previous Premiership membership gained its fifth promotion in seven seasons.
Relegated to the underside rung of the league ladder after they had been liquidated in December 2016 and subsequently booted out of the Championship, the membership that was as soon as dwelling to legends of the sport like John Dawes and JPR Williams has climbed its manner again up from Herts/Middlesex 1 and might now stay up for Nationwide League rugby once more after clinching the Regional 1 South Central league with a 31-17 victory in opposition to Wimbledon. What has occurred at Outdated Deer Park has given Welsh rugby followers a uncommon little bit of positivity in an in any other case gloomy interval.
With the house recreation in opposition to Bracknell to return, on Saturday, April fifth, Welsh have gained all however one in every of their 21 video games and scored 991 factors, to guide the league desk by eight factors. Their solely defeat was 28-24 at dwelling to their nearest challengers Jersey in mid-February, in entrance of a crowd of roughly 1,300.
Former Ospreys prop Cai Griffiths has overseen the Lazarus-like achievement. Griffiths gained promotion with London Welsh after they had been within the Championship and returned to educate and play for the facet after they had been allowed again into the leagues for the 2017/18 season.
Now Director of Rugby and retired from enjoying, Griffiths is delighted that they received the job completed with a recreation to spare.
“Three years on this league and we’re lastly going up. I believe it was an enormous step up from stage 6 to stage 5. It’s such a troublesome slog,” he stated.
“We got here up simply brief final 12 months, so promotion was a particular goal.
“Recruitment went effectively, we retained about 90% of the squad going into the season and we had a strong season with minimal accidents.
“I’m so completely satisfied for the gamers and likewise for the broader assist inside the membership and the supporters.
“You play rugby for these days and people experiences.”
WHAT A DAY
What a season
Thanks to all of our great #lwfamily & to all of Regional 1 SC for an important battle – notably @JerseyRFC, a membership that has been by means of what we have now been by means of & are on their very own journey, a ‘correct’ membership – we’ll see you quickly we’re certain ❣️ pic.twitter.com/3pzqTsxW7M
— London Welsh RFC 🇺🇦 (@LondonWelshRFC) March 22, 2025
Seventy per cent of the squad is of Welsh heritage, together with former seasoned skilled Steven Shingler. Tommy Bell is one other who has performed on the highest stage of the sport, at Sale, Wasps, Leicester and London Irish.
However Welsh’s resurgence hasn’t come about due to cash being thrown round, these harsh classes of the previous have been learnt, with gamers pocketing a number of hundred quid a recreation to assist cowl bills.
Key Welsh academic establishments resembling Monmouth Faculty, Llandovery and Brecon School, in addition to the 2 Cardiff Universities and Swansea College, are pillars of the participant feeder pathway.
Whereas a core group of gamers with 60-70 appearances every exists, Elis Staines (ex-Llandovery School) is the one participant who has been with the membership since Undertaking Reset started in 2017 and the centre is now simply 4 tries away from breaking Paul Sampson’s all-time membership document 44 league tries.
The membership additionally has hyperlinks additional afield, with the well-known Australian Shute Protect membership Manly Marlins. Former Manly captain, Byron Leach, and countryman Tom Douglas give the squad an antipodean affect.
Griffiths is aware of that Nationwide 2 East shall be a problem subsequent season, however his ambitions lengthen past survival – at the very least on the pitch.
“We’re excited, we’ll be concentrating on the highest six. However, for us, it’s about sustainability and being right here for one more 100 years.”
