No bonus points on offer at Mennaye Field on Wednesday night, but the bonus for try scorer James Lewis and London Welsh could come next week if the Exiles go on to be crowned Championship winners.

Lewis claimed the Exiles’ fourth try in their 37-21 1st Leg victory over the Cornish Pirates - the second of two Welsh tries in the space of two minutes, after centre partner Hudson Tonga’uiha had burst through to score under the posts.

But despite taking a 16-point lead into next weekend’s 2nd Leg at the Kassam Stadium, Lewis is adamant that the Exiles will not go out just to defend.

“If we win, we’ve won the Championship. We don’t want to play to win on aggregate - we want to win the game,” he said.

“We’re not going to think about being 16 points ahead - it’s a nil-nil scoreline and it’s another game we need to win.

“That was probably the most intense game we’ve played all year - it was very quick.

“The first ten minutes they came at us hard, but we expected that. We soaked it up and then started to put our game plan together for the rest of the game.

“The first 20 minutes of the second half were crucial, we needed the first points. When they got tired we increased our intensity and managed to get two quick tries and the game turned on its head.”

Lewis admitted that far from being deflated by the RFU’s decision announcing that the club had failed to meet the Minimum Standards Criteria (MSC), which came only hours before kick-off, it actually spurred the Exiles on.

“It made us angrier. We wanted to prove a point that we are capable and we deserve promotion if we win the Championship,” he said.