Famous club back in National Leagues after 5th promotion in 7 seasons

London Welsh's remarkable renaissance shows no sign of stopping. On Saturday, the former Premiership club won its fifth promotion in seven seasons.

Relegated to the bottom rung of the league ladder when they were liquidated in December 2016 and subsequently booted out of the Championship, the club that was once home to legends of the game like John Dawes and JPR Williams has climbed its way back up from Herts/Middlesex 1 and can now look forward to National League rugby again after clinching the Regional 1 South Central league with a 31-17 victory against Wimbledon. What has happened at Old Deer Park has given Welsh rugby followers a rare bit of positivity in an otherwise gloomy period.

With the home game against Bracknell to come, on Saturday, April 5th, Welsh have won all but one of their 21 games and scored 991 points, to lead the league table by eight points. Their only defeat was 28-24 at home to their nearest challengers Jersey in mid-February, in front of a crowd of approximately 1,300.

Former Ospreys prop Cai Griffiths has overseen the Lazarus-like achievement. Griffiths won promotion with London Welsh when they were in the Championship and returned to coach and play for the side when they were allowed back into the leagues for the 2017/18 season.

Now Director of Rugby and retired from playing, Griffiths is delighted that they got the job done with a game to spare.

"Three years in this league and we are finally going up. I think it was a big step up from level 6 to level 5. It is such a tough slog," he said.

"We came up just short last year, so promotion was a definite target.

"Recruitment went well, we retained about 90% of the squad going into the season and we had a solid season with minimal injuries.

"I am so happy for the players and also for the wider support within the club and the supporters.

"You play rugby for those days and those experiences."

Seventy per cent of the squad is of Welsh heritage, including former seasoned professional Steven Shingler. Tommy Bell is another who has played at the highest level of the game, at Sale, Wasps, Leicester and London Irish.

But Welsh's resurgence hasn't come about because of money being thrown around, those harsh lessons of the past have been learnt, with players pocketing a few hundred quid a game to help cover expenses.

Key Welsh educational institutions such as Monmouth School, Llandovery and Brecon College, as well as the two Cardiff Universities and Swansea University, are pillars of the player feeder pathway.

While a core group of players with 60-70 appearances each exists, Elis Staines (ex-Llandovery College) is the only player who has been with the club since Project Reset began in 2017 and the centre is now just four tries away from breaking Paul Sampson's all-time club record 44 league tries.

The club also has links further afield, with the famous Australian Shute Shield club Manly Marlins. Former Manly captain, Byron Leach, and countryman Tom Douglas give the squad an antipodean influence.

Griffiths knows that National 2 East will be a challenge next season, but his ambitions extend beyond survival - at least on the pitch.

"We're excited, we'll be targeting the top six. But, for us, it is about sustainability and being here for another 100 years."