London Welsh head coach Justin Burnell couldn’t fault the honest effort of his players after seeing the Exiles go down to a 48-10 defeat against Gloucester at Kingsholm.

The Cherry and Whites burst into a 27-3 lead in as many minutes and looked set to run away with it, but they were frustrated thereafter by Welsh, and with four minutes remaining they trailed only 34-10.

“I thought we did compete today. I didn’t think it was as one-sided as it was last week (vs Sale Sharks)," said Burnell.

“I thought we were more than in the game.

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“It’s a totally different changing room today.

"Last week they were distraught, but today we came out and were in a fight, and that’s what London Welsh is about.

“We constantly hear about plenty of other environments at other teams where there’s internal bickering, people going.

“What you’ve got at London Welsh is a hard working bunch of people on and off the field.

“And all we can do is keep pushing and there were some great example of that today.”

Forwards coach Matt Ferguson added: “I’m pleased that we didn’t roll over as it could have been another 70-point defeat.

“However, we don’t learn our lessons as we gave them a 20-point start and that gave us a mountain to climb.”