And former Wales Under 20 and Sevens international James Lewis believes the competition can again provide a springboard for the Exiles to take back into the English Championship. Lewis scored a hat-trick of tries against Yorkshire Carnegie in last season’s final.
London Welsh finished fifth in the Championship last season and go into the B&I Cup currently lying in seventh place. They beat Leinster A in Dublin en route to their famous win last season and will be looking to pull off another shock on Irish soil against Munster.
“Leinster A were massive favourites to win it last season. They’d won all their pool games, scoring a lot of points and not conceding many, which meant we went there in the quarter-finals under no pressure,” said Lewis.
“We played a good brand of rugby, won the game and that result boosted our confidence massively. Now we’re looking to do the same in this season’s tournament.
“From there we just started winning games, our confidence was really high and everyone wanted to play in the B&I Cup side. It was a really good experience and I felt I was a big part of that side.
“The excitement built with every round and once we’d qualified for the knock-out stages it just snowballed from there. We played Cornish Pirates in the semi-finals and they’d been our bogey team up until then – we’d lost our three previous meetings against them that season – but we dominated the game, and then we dominated the final against Yorkshire Carnegie.”
