Daniel Browne knows exactly how it feels to be relegated from the Aviva Premiership – the New Zealand-born forward suffered that fate with Leeds in 2011. But he insists he has seen enough already to convince him that he won’t have to relive that nightmare this season with London Welsh.
Browne arrived at the Kassam Stadium from Grenoble, the forward having escaped to France in the aftermath of Leeds’ drop down to the Championship two seasons ago.
Many outside of his new club would have predicted he could very well be suffering the same fate again when he put pen-to-paper with London Welsh, only for victories against Exeter and Sale to lift some pre-determined doom and gloom.
Welsh’s mini-run came to a halt last time out with defeat to Gloucester, but Browne believes the Exiles have shown enough already to prove they are not just in the Premiership to make up the numbers.
“It’s a real learning experience for us,” the 33-year-old said. “We’re still getting to grips with the speed and the pace of the game but we’ve definitely showed we can cope at this level.
“It’s important to keep believing as against the best teams in this league we’re only going to get one or two opportunities a game – we just need to take them when they come along.
“We want to prove everybody wrong. We don’t want to be a yo-yo team who keep going down and coming back up again.
“We need to show that we deserve to play in this league and can survive in the top flight, that’s what we work on every week and I have seen enough about us to believe that we can do it.”
London Welsh look up against it as they bid to get back to winning ways, with Saracens making a trip to the Kassam on Sunday fresh from inflicting a first defeat of the season on defending champions Harlequins.
And, after losing the mental battle against the Cherry and Whites in their last game, Browne is urging his team-mates to keep their head for the visit of Sarries if they are to record a famous win.
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“It’s difficult to pinpoint anything that went wrong really against Gloucester,” he added. “We lacked a bit of smartness to stay in the game and close it out.
“The things we worked so hard on weren’t really transferred onto the pitch which was frustrating, but they were good around the breakdown.
“There were a few silly errors that cost us so we need to be a bit cleverer and then we have a chance to get something from the game.”
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