After their 74-19 battering by Exeter, London Welsh assistant coach Ollie Smith admitted that the side was nowhere near good enough.

He said: “We’d be foolish as a group to think that we have always had a chance, given how the season has gone.

“It has been very obvious that we have been battling against it.

“If we were losing games by four, five or six points, we would be furious thinking ‘when are we going to get over the line?’ “But we’ve not been at the races." So for us, it is just to keep battling on because some may, or may not, be at the club next season.

Smith was happy with Welsh's start to the match.

“We came out of the blocks and got stuck into them and looked quite dangerous at times, which was quite pleasing," he said.

“In the end their quality and physical shape probably overdid us as we ran out of steam.

"We saw Exeter destroy Bath’s scrum last week, so we tried our very hardest in that area of the game. But if you don’t have that platform then you are always going to struggle.”

Praise for the Exiles came from Exeter’s assistant coach Ali Hepher “We knew from our analysis that London Welsh can be a dangerous side and they produced some great offloads,” he said “They are a good team, everyone is writing them off, so it becomes a tough mental battle in the approach.

“We got through to half-time and then upped our game in the second half.”