London Scottish opened their pre season preparations for the 2025/26 season with a 28-26 defeat to local rivals Rosslyn Park. This was the Exiles first game of their season and Rosslyn Park’s third pre season outing before they begin their season proper in a week’s time whilst Scottish have over a month until they travel to Caldy for their first competitive game of the season.

With 12 new faces in action across the match and lots of chopping and changing this was about getting minutes in the legs but Scottish left with much to take from the game as well as a lot to work on.

The opening 10 minutes could not have gone better for Joe Gray’s men, back to back penalties gave them field position and then from the resulting driving maul, Harry Clayton opened his London Scottish account with a try at the back of the rumbling maul.

A few minutes later, Club stalwart, Noah Ferdinand also crossed the whitewash as Scottish built the pressure in the 22 going through lots of phases to get there. An impressive first showing from the Scots.

However, Rosslyn Park would build back into the game with two quick scores as match fitness began to tell and the Exiles began to give penalties away. Despite this though Scottish would go into half time with the lead thanks to a Matt Gribbon finish in the corner following more lovely rugby inside the 22.

After the break, both sides wrung the changes with Rosslyn Park able to hold their continuity together better than that of Scottish’s trading two tries to the one in favour of the hosts over the next forty minutes, Rosslyn Park won the game thanks to a conversion and were well deserved winners.

Scottish will know that have to build fast going into their final pre season game against Nottingham and into the season proper, however, this was a valuable outing for the side as they built cohesion and fitness across the eighty.