JUSTIN Burnell said London Welsh must learn lessons from their 52-0 home hammering by Exeter if they are to compete in the Aviva Premiership.

Welsh faded badly and made too many individual mistakes after a decent start against the Chiefs, deservedly shipping seven tries.

“You have got to learn from it, haven’t you?” said Burnell. “That’s the biggest thing.

“At crucial times in crucial places, there were opportunities we squandered. We just spilt the ball.

“In all fairness to Exeter, they just completely capitalised on our turnovers.

“When you have got possession, you have got to keep hold of it and hopefully come out of the green zone with points.”

Burnell made 25 signings this summer, but stressed that had little to do with Welsh’s disjointed display.

“We can all hide behind the fact of the numbers coming in, but when people are making individual errors, that’s absolutely nothing to do with the amount of signings you made,” he said.

“If you are a professional player, you have got to make your tackles, you have got to make that final pass, you have got to hold on to it.

“Being realistic, we have missed too many tackles.”

Exeter assistant coach Ali Hepher said: “We always thought that they would come hard at us and that first 20 minutes were tough, but we were also confident in our ability to come through that.

“London Welsh virtually had a couple of tries early on.

“If they scored then, it’s a different ball game.

“I don’t think they are a million miles away, but equally we were able to sustain a level for a little bit longer and then things started to bounce our way a little bit.”

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