STEPHEN MYLER says the Exiles will need to produce a high quality performance as he prepares to clash with some familiar faces this weekend.
The fly-half arrived at London Irish this summer following 12 years with Northampton Saints and he is set to do battle with numerous former team-mates when Bedford Blues travel to Madejski Stadium on Sunday (3pm).
Charlie Clare and Jamie Elliott both made the step from Saints to Blues this year while Lee Dickson is still a player-coach at Bedford having joined in 2017.
Irish currently sit third in the Championship table, two points behind Bedford having played a game less, and Myler is expecting a tricky battle against the Midlanders.
“It’s going to be a difficult one,” the back told The Wokingham Paper.
“It’s a tough start. We’ve had Ealing and then we’ve got Bedford.
“I know quite a few of their players from my time at Saints and I know that they’re a decent team so it’s going to be a tough test.
“The key thing for us is that we play to somewhere near the best of our ability and we’re confident that we have a good chance of coming away with a win if we do that.
“But we know that they’re not going to make it easy for us and they’ve got some good players in their team.
“But we also feel like we have as well, so we’ve got to try and exploit them on the day but, like any other team, they’re going to be doing the same to us.
“Whoever is going to play the best on the day is going to come away with the win and hopefully that will be us.”
Unbeaten Rams run in seven tries against rivals Henley
The Exiles have had no game since they defeated Nottingham 52-20 on September 8 with last weekend’s scheduled trip to Jersey being rearranged.
That means they are forced to play catch-up already in the race for promotion and Myler admits he cannot wait for the matches to roll around again.
“It was a bit of a strange one really being so early in the season, but that’s out of our control,” he said.
“We’re looking forward to getting back into games again now.
“We felt like we improved a little bit during our last game so we’re just hoping to build on what we did there and take that into what is going to be a tough game this weekend.”
Declan Kidney has made just one change from the win over Nottingham for Sunday’s clash with Bedford. Brendan Macken comes in for his debut at centre with Bryce Campbell dropping to the bench, where he is joined by fit-again Ollie Hoskins.
LONDON IRISH: Parton, Ojo, Macken, Stephenson, McLean, Myler, Meehan; Reid, Porecki, Cilliers, Maddison, Paulo, McNally (c), Ioane, Rogerson.
Reps: Fainga’a, Elrington, Hoskins, Cowan, Schatz, McKibbin, Campbell.
