James Buckland is looking forward to his first season as Rosslyn Park head coach and is not daunted by the challenge of a brand new pitch.

The former London Wasps hooker, who also played for Leicester Tigers and London Irish, took over as coach of Rosslyn earlier this year, signing a three-year contract.

Park have already started pre-season training and Buckland is enjoying working with the current squad.

He said: “We’ve been in training for about four weeks now and all the boys are working really hard.

“We’ve lost a few players, but we’ve held on to the main nucleus of last year’s squad.

“There’s been a good turnover of players, so the boys who have come in have really fitted in well.”

The club is laying down a 4G pitch in time for the new season and Buckland is aware that the new surface at the Rock will take some getting used to.

He said: “The pitch is going to be different and the boys are going to have to adapt. However, the benefits are there.

“We can always train on the new ground as it is an all weather pitch, so it will be great over the long season.”

Park finished in second place last season and, after narrowly missing out on promotion, Buckland hopes they can go better this time around.

“It’s always going to be difficult to win the league, but as long as we keep playing decent rugby we are going to be there or there about come the end of the season.

“It’s a long old season with a lot of games so we will just take it one step at a time,” he added.