Olly Barkley will make his London Welsh debut in their pre-season friendly against Wasps at Adams Park tomorrow (2.30pm).

The former England fly half, who has won 23 caps for his country, is one of five players to make their first appearance for the Exiles as Justin Burnell’s side continue their preparations for the upcoming Aviva Premiership season.

Tim Molenaar, Koree Britton, Dean Schofield and Taione Vea, who joined the Exiles from Wasps in the summer, are also named in the starting XV for the first time, all of whom did not feature in the recent win over Henley Hawks.

The Exiles will be looking to follow up their 64-0 victory over the Hawks at Dry Leas last weekend, when they ran in ten tries Following Sunday’s clash at Wasps, Welsh complete their pre-season schedule with a trip to Sardis Road on August 23 to take on Pontypridd, before opening their Aviva Premiership campaign against Exeter Chiefs on September 7 at the Kassam Stadium.

“Sunday is another part of the process building up to September 7,” said head coach Burnell.

“Once again it’s about finding out where we’re at and there couldn’t be a better stage, with three weeks to go until the start of the season, to measure ourselves than against a fantastic Aviva Premiership team in Wasps.

“I want to see a performance on Sunday.

“I want to see what we’ve been working on with this XV.

“We’ve worked on different things with this group than we did with the Henley group and Sunday will allow me to measure where we’re at with a new group of players.

“After Sunday, I’ll have seen nearly all of my squad members play and I’ll then be in a far better position to take us in to the next game against Pontypridd.”

Line-up

London Welsh: Jewell, Stegmann, May (capt), Molenaar, Scott, Barkley, R Lewis, Trevett, Britton, Vea, Schofield, Corker,  P Browne, Thorpe, Stedman.
Reps: Henn, Gilding, Cooper, Cahill, Vella, Morris, Down, McNally, Waters, McCaffrey, D Browne, Pienaar, Rowley, Roberts, Crane, Field, J Lewis, Reynolds, Elder.

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