Battersea Ironsides take on Camberley this weekend in the London & SE Junior Vase title, with skipper Colin O’Keeffe giving thanks to their opponents.

The rivals are not only vying for cup glory, they are going head-to-head for the Surrey One title.

Ironsides are in the driving seat, sitting 10 points ahead of Camberley with three games remaining – including the season finale at Camberley.

O’Keeffe’s men have found themselves on top of the table thanks to an unbeaten record of won 14, drawn one.

And the skipper says they owe part of that success to Camberley, who themselves have gone 12 league games unbeaten.

He said: “Camberley’s form has helped us in a way, because they’ve been putting pressure on us we’ve had to play our best rugby.

Click here for all the latest regional rugby news

“Week-on-week, we’re having to improve and learn to play according to the opponent.

“We can play narrow or wide, or play a kicking game, which ever we have to, to get a result.

“It has made us a more intelligent team because we’re deciphering teams as we go along, and pulling the tools out of the toolbox we’ve been developing as the season’s gone on.”

Camberley are not only out to knock Ironsides off their Surrey One perch, but also their status as current regional Vase champions.

Your Local Guardian:

A step too far: O'Keeffe is looking for a possible revenge rematch against Longlevens in the national Vase semi-final

However, despite being attacked on two fronts, O’Keeffe reckons there is no pressure on his Ironsides.

“We’re under less pressure given the form we have shown this season compared to last season,” he said.

“Yes, we have got a good opponent coming at us, when you consider their form in the league, but we are relishing the challenge.

“And given that we beat them at home at the start of the season [59-35], we hope to replicate the same result. It was a wide open game of rugby, they like to play a wide game and so do we.

“They have improved since the beginning of the season, so it should be a good encounter on Saturday.”

This time last season, Ironsides beat Seaford to claim the Vase, and set up a national semi-final against Longlevens, which ended in defeat just one match short of a Twickenham appearance.

Should the Garratt Green side beat Camberley, they could face Longlevens again and the possibility of revenge is sitting happily on O’Keeffe’s shoulders.

“We have one eye on Twickenham, you cannot help that at this stage of the competition,” he said.

“But we’re taking each game as it comes, we would not be where we are this season with any other mentality – we learned that from last season.”

He added: “Chances are we’d be playing Longlevens in the national semi-final.

“Revenge would be nice, I cannot think of any other way of getting to Twickenham than beating Camberley and then going to Longlevens and beating them.”

Saturday’s London & SE Junior Vase final kicks off at 1pm at Ironsides’ Garratt Green home.