New and improved levels of fitness could be the secret for Ealing Trailfinders to progress in the Greene King IPA Championship this season after they successfully made the step up from National One last year.

The new strength and conditioning team has been putting the squad through their paces in pre-season and introduced GPS systems to track the squad’s running like many professional clubs.

Captain Alex Walker has been impressed with the new techniques and is expecting them to pay big dividends this season as the club look to progress towards mid-table.

“We’ve recruited well on and off the field so there’s a good feeling in the camp,” he said.

“Pre-season has been good, there’s a whole new strength and conditioning team so they’ve put us through our paces and the boys are looking in good shape.

“There’s a whole team of them, including four interns, and everything is monitored for us and everything is structured and the boys are really happy with it.

“We have added GPS to our training systems now and games so we can monitor how far we’re running and how fast it gives them a better idea as to where we are as players.

“It was a tough season last season, we came up from National One and we did enough to stay up which was what we wanted and we’ll look to push on from there this season.”

The Trailfinders finished 11 points clear of relegated Moseley in the Greene King IPA Championship last season and a single point behind Rotherham Titans.

With new signings on the pitch as well as off it, including 35-year-old Mark Bright from London Scottish, there’s plenty of competition for places in the starting XV.

And Walker is expecting that extra competitive edge in training to make a real difference when it comes to performances out on the pitch this season.

“We felt like we had some really good performances last season, only missing out on a few wins with last-minute kicks and things like that,” he added.

“We did enough to stay up and then we’re going to push on from there and hopefully do a little bit better than last season.

“It’s apparent from our signings on and off the field we’ve got some really good people in place.

“Mark Bright has been around the Championship for a long time and two new nines have come in so there’s competition for me as well which is great.

“Competition throughout the whole squad should push us forward. Everyone wants to do their best for the squad and obviously they’ve got their own goals as well.

“Everyone is pushing for places, everyone wants to play well and get their spot in the team, if everyone plays well then the team does well as a whole.

“The Championship is a very tough league; we found that out first hand last season.

“There are lots of good teams in there who have been here for a long time and everyone wants to push on for promotion so it’s very competitive.”

Formed in 2009, the Greene King IPA Championship is the second tier of professional rugby in England. To keep up to date with the latest news, follow @ChampRugby on Twitter.