Prolific Ealing winger Phil Chesters opened his account against Yorkshire Carnegie in a 40-28 defeat last weekend and he believes the Trailfinders have all the assets required to stay in the Greene King IPA Championship this year.

The promoted side, who bounced straight back from Championship relegation in 2013-14, have endured a difficult start, with three straight defeats to Rotherham, London Scottish, and Carnegie.

However, having made a significant number of signings over the summer, Chesters is convinced it is only a matter of time before they start to gel.

“We always knew how tough it would be making the jump up to the Greene King IPA Championship from National League One, but we’ve made a lot of decent signings,” said Chesters.

“Maybe we haven’t bedded as quickly as we’d have liked, but also we had quite a tough start. We always knew the first few games were going to be difficult, but we’re quietly confident that we’re improving each week and we’ve grabbed a couple of bonus points along the way, which is obviously very important."

“I think this is different from the last time we came up. We’ve made a lot more signings, but a lot of them have played Championship rugby before, and some even higher, and that brings a lot of experience into the squad. We’re improving day by day and if we keep doing that, we’ll be a real force.

"Yorkshire Carnegie were a very well-drilled team. They’re a big side, but they’ve also got a lot of pace in attack so they were strong across the board."

“Equally, we went there two years ago and had a big score put on us, but this time we did much better. If we hadn’t missed two or three silly tackles, we would have been right in the game, so we were pretty disappointed to lose by 12.”

With just two points under their collective belt, Ealing now host Cornish Pirates this weekend. The Pirates have only won one of their three Greene King IPA Championship matches this season, but Chesters insists they will not be underestimated.

“We can’t read too much into the Pirates’ results so far this year, because they’ve lost a couple of very close games, so they’ve actually had a reasonably strong start,” added Chesters. "They’re not one of the top four or five teams, so we’d like to think we can have a good run-out against them."

“We know they’ve got some very good kickers, so they’ll have a good territory game and they’ll be able to play in the right areas of the field, and they’re usually pretty strong round the set piece. Our sole goal this year is to stay in the Greene King IPA Championship, and if we can ensure that we would love to push on to mid-table.

“First things first though, it’s a matter of getting our game in place and getting that first win on the board.”

The 2015/16 Greene King IPA Championship kicked-off on September 5. To stay up-to-date with all the latest action from across the league, follow @Champrugby on Twitter