London Scottish sat down with Head Coach Joe Gray to chat through the first couple of weeks of pre season and how he sees his squad sizing up throughout the 2024/25 season.

Following a six week break the Exiles returned to training on Tuesday 9th July. With 21 of last year’s squad retained and seven new faces entering the side it has been a wonderful mix of continuity with a sprinkling of new talent.

One of those new faces was Welsh international Jonah Holmes. Speaking on the impact Jonah has had since joining Joe said “coming from a professional set up at Ealing, he’s come in with loads of energy and looks superb as you would expect. He’s came in and really impressed.”

Another new face to impress Joe Gray and the coaching staff was young back row Alex Wardell who joins from Saracens. Joe noted his contribution so far by saying “coming in with that work rate factor they [Saracens] have really fits in with what we want to do.”

But all round all the new faces have fitted in brilliantly as Joe said “all the lads have impressed and fit in really well. And our lads we’ve managed to keep as a core squad which is really exciting.”

That continuity will be incredibly important for London Scottish as they look to build on what was a strong end to the 2023/24 season.

The main focus so far in pre season has been on understanding and cohesion, Joe’s first aim was to “get the new lads up to speed with what we are trying to do as a group.” Then taking the positives from last year Joe wants the group to “progress on how we finished the end of last season. The last six or seven weeks of the season we performed a lot better, we scored a lot of tries and had some great wins. So it’s just about trying to progress on from that and learn from that.”

You can join Joe and his team in the new season by purchasing a Membership or Season Ticket for the 2024/25 season.