Skipper Peter Lydon says London Scottish’s summer signings have already made their mark by helping to create new styles of play as the Exiles look to secure promotion from the Greene King IPA Championship.
Since joining from Stade Francais last summer, Lydon has been one of the Greene King IPA Championship’s stand-out performers, playing a central role in Scottish’s play-off push.
Scottish lost to eventual champions Worcester Warriors in the play-off semi-final but the club have made a host of signings as they look to go one step further by reaching the Aviva Premiership.
The Greene King IPA Championship season does not start until next month but Lydon has already been impressed by the new additions to the backline.
The Irishman said: “We have made some good signings at the back. We had Drew Locke come in from Jersey, we have Russell Weir from the Scotland Sevens set-up and Jason Harries from the Wales Sevens set-up.
“They are just a few I could mention who have settled in well and have brought in their own new ideas as well.
“It has been really good. We did quite well last year but we can’t rely just on the same style of play so we have been working on a few new things and the new signings have helped massively with that.
“We have some big boys in the pack as well but that is a little bit outside of my expertise but in terms of the backline, it is really exciting.”
The 22-year-old, who played at 10, 12 and 15 last season, was pleased with Scottish’s overall performance last season but accepted improvements needed to be made.
The Exiles won twice as many Championship home games compared with their away fixtures, winning just four times away from the Athletic Ground.
It is a statistic that needs to change according to Lydon.
The former Kilkenny College student said: “We are going to try to focus on the away games by picking up the level of intensity and the way we perform because last season there was disparity between the two.
“Our home form was very good and our away form was patchy and we would play well for 40 minutes or so before falling away, so we need to pick up our away form a lot.
“We were getting bonus point wins in pretty much every home game so I think our away form was slightly off last season so we are trying to improve that and get it to the same level as what our home form has been like.
“It will be tough because everybody targets their home games as the ones to dominate the opposition so we will do our best and see where it takes us.”
The 2015/16 Greene King IPA Championship kicks-off on September 5th. To stay up-to-date with all the latest action from across the league, follow @Champrugby on Twitter
Feature image of Peter Lydon of London Scottish on the left and Chris Brightwell of Moseley on the right
