London Scottish head coach Simon Amor is hoping a pre-season atmosphere at the Athletic Ground will not de-rail efforts to avoid the Championship drop.

Amor’s men, missing first choice number 10s James Brown and Dan Mugford, lost 29-22 to London Welsh on Sunday ahead of their final regular season match at Rotherham tomorrow.

Scottish have introduced a host of new faces to the squad in recent weeks and have welcomed back plenty of others from injury.

The lack of familiarity cost them dear as Welsh exploited their defensive frailties – particularly in the second half – and Amor is hoping it is put right sooner rather than later.

“It has been a pre-season period for the last few games or so,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of guys coming in new to the squad and people coming back from injury.

“Defensively we got exposed on a few occasions against a team with some tremendous strike runners.

“We ended up getting our systems wrong defensively and once they got through they finished us off.”

“But I was really pleased with the attitude and spirit and that can only bode well.”

Scottish’s tries came from Gerard Mullen, Alex Karonias and Mark Bright.