COLCHESTER Rugby Club coach Nic Lloyd believes they can expect a “baptism of fire” in their opening weeks as a national league club.

The Mill Road side are preparing for life in National League Three London and South East, following their promotion as London and South East division one north champions.

Head coach Anthony O’Riordan, along with his coaching team of Lloyd and Lee Soper, will kick off their campaign with a home game against Gravesend on September 5, after the fixtures were released.

And they will immediately follow that up with another fixture on home soil against London Irish Wild Geese, who narrowly missed out on a play-off spot last season.

Colchester will then travel to play Chichester on September 19 before an intriguing home clash with Eton Manor, who they pipped to automatic promotion last month.

And backs coach Lloyd said: “I’m quite happy with that start – it’s all systems go.

“It’s a bit of a baptism of fire but it’ll let us know exactly where we stand. There’s some good matches to look forward to.

“London Irish are one of the top sides from last year and Eton Manor is certainly one to look forward to.

“We know it’ll be a very tough game and it’ll be interesting to see how far they’ve come since last season.

“It’s nice to have three of our first four games at home and they are easy to get up for.

“But on the other side of the coin, we’ll have to play those teams away and we know we have to win those games too. “We didn’t lose too many away games last season and we want that to continue. “It’s an exciting start but I don’t think positive results will lull us into a false sense of security.”

Colchester are due to return to pre-season training on July 1.

They have been tapping into the knowledge of Bury St Edmunds, who won promotion last season as National League Three London and South East champions.

“We’re aiming to be very well prepared and we have a good pre-season training programme in place,” added Lloyd.

“We have a pre-season tour planned to Guernsey, who are also in our league, and we also have Gloucestershire coming to us, so we’ll be ready.”