Rich Hoskins says Fullerians should be aiming to finish in the top four or even secure a second successive promotion after admitting he had been too conservative in his initial aim of survival.

Fullers won promotion to London Two North West by becoming London Three North West champions in April and speaking at the time the 33-year-old set his sights on avoiding an immediate return to the eighth tier.

“We want to try and cement ourselves at this level,” the head coach said. “It is just a really big achievement considering where they finished last season [eighth].

“We will take it game by game again. There are no expectations other than to stay up.”

Chairman Kevin Brind, however, was more buoyant in his prediction and said: “I reckon we will compete again. We will be there or thereabouts. When we have cemented our place I want to push on again – I would love to finish in the top four.”

Now though, former London Irish and Bath prop Hoskins says his chairman might have been more realistic in his ambitions.

“I said we would go out to consolidate and Kevin said we’d be in the top four,” said Hoskins ahead of tomorrow’s London Two North West opener at Staines. “I have to say I think he might have been right and I was wrong.

“From pre-season and the feeling I’m getting from the players – and I don’t want to get carried away – I think we can get into that top four or look at winning promotion, even.

“The boys have all said we can’t rest where we are and they are absolutely right.”

Fullers got their 2015/16 campaign underway with a 40-15 win over Cantabrigian in the RFU Cup on Saturday and Hoskins knows carrying that momentum into the league campaign at Staines will be vital.

He said: “It’s a big thing for us to still make sure performances are good and that is key. If you get a decent performance you can win if everyone sticks to their job, does what they are told and what we've worked on.

“Staines have not done well in pre-season and although you can’t read into that too much it won’t have helped them.”

Fullers, on the other hand, have enjoyed a good pre-season by winning a tournament at Harrow and beating Belsize Park either side of a 19-7 loss at home to Tring.

Those results preceded Saturday’s curtain raiser against Cantabrigian, and Hoskins was delighted with his side’s display.

He said: “We played some really good stuff. We have got a Plan A and we are now trying to get a Plan B in place.

“To be honest it was a tough first 10 minutes but once we got going we scored some really good tries.

"The boys played well and we scored a lot of tries out wide which is the Plan B. We left 20 points out there but I would have taken that before the match without doubt.”

He added: “Staines will be a big game for us. We are away from home and we want to get off to the very best start possible.”

Fullerians Seconds lost to a strong Amersham and Chiltern side 12-5 on Saturday, but the scoreline did not reflect the game.

The Fullers defence were impressive and they were only undone by a controversial first try and an intercepted midfield pass.

Fullers, however, won the second half courtesy of a try from Matt Bunce.