Fullerians coach Rich Hoskins sent out a warning to the side’s league rivals after they recorded a bonus-point win over Ruislip in their first game in the London One North.

Having won back-to-back promotions in their previous two years, there was little weight of expectation on the hosts in their opening game of the season, but after a 31-7 win, in which they scored five tries, Hoskins said they had been underestimated by their opponents.

“They were quite arrogant in the way they got there and walked round the place,” he said. “I know one of their players and they said they knew they were in for a game when they saw the way we were warming up, and that they couldn’t get near us.”

Fullers dictated the game from the off and man-of-the-match George Harvey got them on the scoreboard early on when he crashed over following a scrum, before Julian Manieson added a second.

Ruislip got themselves on the scoreboard when they went on quickly from a penalty, catching Fullerians off guard in a rare concentration lapse from the hosts, and after scoring under the posts they saw their only try of the match converted to leave the score 12-7 at the break.

Further home tries after the break from Adam Anker and another two from Harvey, to complete a hat-trick, saw them to a comfortable victory, with Dan Evans kicking six points to seal a great start to the season.

with Hoskins reserved special praise for both his number eight, and the side’s impressive fitness as the tie wore on.

He said: “We said we needed to make a big effort in the summer to make our guys fitter and stronger.

“We brought in the strength and conditioning coach, and he has been working with the players every week. The boys have bought into it completely and it has worked very well for them.

“In the final 30 minutes we blew them away, to be completely honest, and it was great. They were quite shell-shocked about how we played which was good; it will be like that while there are teams who don’t know what we are like.

“We’ll have that in the bag in the first part of the season, with teams not knowing how good we are, and hopefully our fitness can help us to do that to more teams throughout the campaign.

“George put in a man-of-the-match performance and I thought he was excellent. He came to us from a local side and his skill level wasn’t fantastic, but he has come so far since then and it’s really good to see that improvement in one of your players.

“We do get the players to try to prepare right and do they own warm-up; I don’t need to spoon feed them, they know what they need to do.”

Hoskins previously told the Watford Observer the club would not compete with the finances spent by some other sides in the London One North, and would continue to utilise players who would play for free – to keep a sense of pride from his players in their shirt.

And while that pride bore fruit impressively against Ruislip in a match they dominated from start to finish, the director of rugby felt there was still room for improvement.

“It’s a good start. It might not be a dream start, but we said we would take things game to game and I am happy.  “Our aim was to win the game and we got the bonus point too, so it’s a very strong start.

“It’s the best all-round team performance I have seen from the lads since I have been here.  “The occasion was great, it really had the feel of a London One club with the sponsors being here, a new scoreboard and everything about the day.

“The boys did their bit too, and it left me without much to say to them.  “Someone said it was the quietest they have ever known me to be, but it’s because they had done so well, there wasn’t a huge amount to say.

“We are not getting ahead of ourselves but hopefully Old Priorians are going to be the next ones to get that impact of our game.”

Fullerians will get to play in front of their home crowd for the second weekend in a row as they host Old Priorians this Saturday, at 3pm.

The visitors were on the wrong end of a 33-5 opening-day home defeat by North Walsham, and are sitting bottom of a very early league table.