NICK KENNEDY says he already has a starting line-up in mind for the upcoming play-offs.
The London Irish head coach has chopped and changed his side regularly during his first season in charge as the Exiles have stormed to top spot in the Greene King IPA Championship.
But after registering their biggest win of the season with an 82-3 thrashing of Rotherham Titans on Saturday, Kennedy says now is the time for some stability with just one regular league game to play.
“We’re pretty much settled in our mind,” he said.
“We’ve got a couple of injuries that might come back in next week but we’ll see how we go.
“We’ll review the Rotherham game and have some big discussions over the selection.
“But on the whole, it is about continuity for us now and settling on that team to really get the benefits of those relationships and the boys working together.”
He added: “I thought it was a very, very good performance against Rotherham.
“It was an 80-minute performance which was great.
“Everything we’ve been doing all season has been about peaking for the end of the season, such is the nature of the league.
“We’ve trained with the same team for the last couple of weeks. We’ve been rotating so much throughout the year that this is the first time we’ve seen the benefit of our continuity.”
Among the notable displays against Rotherham were a hat-trick for Alex Lewington, who only returned from injury in the last few weeks, Greig Tonks passing the 100 points mark for the club with a series of impressive kicks and fit again Tommy Bell making a cameo appearance.
And Kennedy says the hard work behind the scenes is beginning to show on the pitch.
“I thought there were some great individual performances as well as that 80-minute team performance that we wanted,” he said.
“Last month in the gym we had over 500 personal bests so from a strength and conditioning point of view, the boys are in great shape.
“No-one has played that much rugby because of our rotation so everyone is well rested and fresh and that’s exactly what we wanted coming into the business end of the season.”
The Exiles end their regular league campaign at Doncaster Knights on Saturday.
REPORT: London Irish 82-3 Rotherham Titans – 12 try Exiles run riot
