London Scottish's chief executive Kenny Baillie had said the club will not be able to accept promotion to the top-flight in the event of winning the Championship. London Scottish currently lie in fifth but are only five points behind leaders Bristol with a game in hand.

The club was kicked out of the leagues by the RFU in 1999 and has climbed back to their current position but unlike Tony Tiarks - the owner largely responsible for their demise back then - Baillie is keeping his feet on the ground.

"The Premiership is not a realistic option for us," he told the Rugby Paper. "We don't have the stadium to go into the Premiership and making such a jump in the next seven or eight months would be enormous, but it's something we want to address in future.

"It's about building. We're consolidating well in the Championship and we'd like to be challenging for honours in that league on a regular basis. We've got a five-year plan, which we're tracking slightly ahead, and one of the cornerstones is to be recognised as a top-four Championship club.

"We want to be competing in semi-finals and finals to give us the platform to look to go higher. Beyond that, we want to develop our facilities and academy, which is a big boulder we'd like to set rolling as part of the club's development."

The ground remains the biggest obstacle to the Premiership. Tiarks engineered an unsuccessful ground-share at The Stoop and that still haunts the club. For now they continue to play at the Richmond Athletic Ground, less than a mile from the Old Deer Park base London Welsh appear to be preparing to leave.

"Capacity wouldn't be high enough so we face the same decision as London Welsh made, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes," Baillie said.