Battersea Ironsides are fighting on three fronts for silverware this season, but skipper Colin O’Keeffe does not mind if they only win one – as long as it is the Surrey One title.

At the midway stage of the season, the Garratt Green-based Ironsides top the table by five points, with nine games to play – looking to reach London Division Three South West for the first time in the club’s history.

They also face Guildfordians in the semi-finals of the Surrey Shield, on a date yet to be arranged, and they continue their defence of the London & SE Junior Vase title on January 24 at home to Sheppey.

O’Keeffe, pictured, readily admitted that Ironsides’s concentration on the Vase last season and an ultimately doomed effort to get to Twickenham in the national final came at the expense of the league.

However, it is all different this time around.

He said: “The club is undoubtedly in the most successful period in its history, and long may it continue.

“The focus on the cup last season did take away from the focus on the league.

“If we’d put the same effort into the league, I believe we could have got into the play-offs and potentially gone up.”

He added: “Being a south-west London club we attract a rich vein of players who come to London for work.

“So we want to be playing London rugby. We have players who have played at national level, and then there are players like myself who want to push the club on.

“Number one priority has to be the league, because it is the vehicle that gets the club to the higher stage and a higher profile.

“We’ve always been in and around Surrey One or Two, so getting into the London leagues would be the best achievement yet for the club.”

Ironsides’ success has its base in a strength of depth never before seen at the club, and a miserly defence which has conceded only 107 points in nine league games.

O’Keeffe said: “We have a lot of competition in all places, which is fantastic for the club.

“It means when we have a player missing through work, a stag do, honeymoons, etc, we have someone who can step into their shoes, and you won’t know they had been changed.

“That’s huge for us.”