Scott Steele looking to push on this season

Scott Steele has made a big impact for The Exiles since joining London Irish from Leicester Tigers last season, cementing himself as a first team regular. Whilst Scott finished the season with injury his recovery looks to be well underway.

“I managed to get away for one week, it was good to get home and get a rest from training.” Said Scott.

“The Rehab is going really well and I’m a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. I started running this week so things are looking good and hopefully I’ll be back into rugby training by the end of July.”

On a personal front Scott had a great first season with Irish, making 22 appearances and crossing for two tries.  His first season at the Club was made sweeter by being awarded the London Irish Young Player of the Season award.”

This season Steele faces stiff competition with the likes of the London Irish Academy’s Connor Murphy as well as Darren Allinson and new signing Brendan McKibbin who will all be vying for the opportunity to pull on the number 9 jersey.

It will be a challenging time for him but one he is looking forward to and with a long pre-season has plenty of time to impress.

“Last year I had a good pre-season so hopefully I’ll be able to do that again, I just want to try and play as much as I did last year.

“Darren finished well at the end of the season, Connor had a great season on loan at Henley and with Brendan coming across he has played a lot and is an experienced player. So it will be tough to play as much as I did last year but that is the challenge I have set myself.”

As we look ahead to the new season, the changes at the Club are already noticeable with new assistant coach Grant Doorey taking the reigns until Tom Coventry arrives July 13^th. Steele is excited about the future and is optimistic about what that might hold.

Scott said, “It’s exciting. There are a lot of new faces and different view points on how to do things and I think that is only going to help us as a squad.  A lot of new players coming in as well which helps with different ideas and new leaders with a lot of experience.

“If we mold together well at the start of the year I think it will be good for us. Obviously a few lads are away for the World Cup but hopefully we pick up form early on and then those lads can come in and add to that.”

Whilst looking forward to the 2015/16 season, Steele reflects on the season just passed adding. “As a squad, we see last year as a disappointment. We did well in Europe and a decision at the end of that Edinburgh game could have changed our season. As a team we know we can beat any squad if we play as well as we can which we proved on a couple of occasions. The mind-set is more consistency this year and when we get a good run of form we need to keep that going for as long as possible.”