London Welsh have not had it all their own way in the Championship so far – but they are prepared to scrape their way into the top four if needs be, writes Chris Bailey.

Tries from Josh Drauniniu and Nic Reynolds helped the exiles to a 14-8 win over Jersey last Friday.

Coach Rowland Phillips’ men are currently off the pace when it comes to the race for the play-offs, but back rower Ben Pienaar is sure they will get there.

“We always knew the Championship was going to be difficult, all the teams can beat each other,” he said.

“We know it’s going to be tough to get promoted back up, but all we need to worry about is getting the points to finish in the top four.

“It’s fair to say we haven’t clicked yet, but we’re trying to put what we do in practice into games.

“We got used to losing last year, so our first win lifted the whole team and now it’s important to get that winning mentality in place for good.”

The exiles are now on the hunt for consecutive wins and Saturday’s fixture at Rotherham Titans is an acid test for whether they are truly back on track.

Second-place Yorkshire Carnegie are the only team to topple Rotherham at home this season and Pienaar is expecting the kind of battle in the trenches that would not be out of place in the Premiership.

“We know that Rotherham are a big physical team and very well-drilled, we can’t afford to take them lightly at all,” Pienaar added.

“I can tell you that the boys in the pack don’t get any smaller going into the Championship from the Premiership, if anything they get bigger!

“Perhaps at Premiership level, players make better decisions and know when to do certain things at the right time – that’s the only difference between the two at the moment that I see.

“We got punished for our decision making last season whereas you might get away with a mistake in this league, but it’s definitely a focus of ours to make sure they don’t happen as often.”

* The 2015/16 Greene King IPA Championship kicked off in September. To stay up-to-date with all the latest action, follow @Champrugby on Twitter