Elthamians’ new forwards coach arrived at the club at the start of the summer, having forged a deserved reputation as one of the finest scrummaging props outside of the Premiership.

During a career spent largely in the upper echelons of the Championship and National One with London Welsh, London Scottish, Barking and Rosslyn Park, the 30-year-old tighthead prop has been selected in the Championship ‘dream team’ – the only part-time player to be picked, as voted for by his peers - and the National One Select XV twice.

It’s a big reputation to carry around with you, like a target on your back, in the murky underworld of the front row. But Liffchak is a self-confessed scrummaging obsessive, a man fascinated by the technical vagaries of the front row. “I do bring a passion for scrummaging, which sounds a bit weird,” he laughs.

“How can you be passionate about something that last 20 seconds, and god knows what happens at the end of it. But it’s like anything, if you are passionate about something, people buy into it.”

As he readily admits, at only 5ft 10 inches and 17 and a half stone, he is dwarfed at times by the modern day behemoths who pack down in National League front rows. But his lack of size is outweighed by a technique that in the words of fellow Elthamian newcomer, Gavin O’Meara who as a hooker with Blackheath regularly came up against Liffchak, make him “an absolute nause to play against!”

“I spent three years playing against him at Rosslyn Park,” O’Meara recalls, “and he would always terrorise our scrum. I’d always say, ‘don’t bore in on me’, and he always would. He’s an outstanding scrummager.”

Liffchak, who has represented England at U16 and U18 levels as well as England Students and Counties, joined the Saracens Academy straight from school, climbing through the ranks to make his Premiership debut against London Irish in 2005.

It was at Sarries, that Liffchak was to meet the man whom he cites as the biggest influence on his rugby career and sparked his fascination with the intracacies of the scrum – South African tighthead Cobus Visagie.

“At the time Cobus, was one of the best tightheads in the world,” Liffchak says. “He was simply on another level. I was just like a sponge at 18 and 19, a real scrum bore, learning absolutely everything I could from him. Cobus was passionate about scrummaging and I would sit with him, shut up and just listen to him talk about scrummaging all the time.”

The front row players, Liffchak has either trained with or played alongside during his career, reads like a scrummaging who’s who – England front rowers David Wilson, Paul Doran-Jones, Matt Cairns, French hooker Raphel Ibanez, Welsh prop Ben Broster to name just a few.

Now Liffchak is eager to apply his scrummaging expertise to Elthamians. It’s an area in which the club struggled last season, but while he is excited at getting his hands on the OEs scrum, ‘Liffy’ warns it won’t suddenly become transformed overnight.

“What I’ve said to the boys is that by the time we play our first league game, the scrum will not be the finished article, no way,” he says. “We are changing a lot – there’s a lot of technical analysis and video analysis. It’s not something you learn over eight weeks of pre-season. It’s something you learn over a year or two.

“I’m not the biggest prop, so I’ve had to become a technical scrummager. But 99 per cent of the time, I can only be successful in the scrum, if the bind’s right,” he explains. “It means everyone has to buy into the technical aspect of the scrum for me to be successful. We push in a certain direction, so it allows the prop to do what he needs to do.

“I treat the front row as more of a driver of the bus, so you’re deciding where you put that power. Do you want to put it through to the right? Do you want to put it up or down? If you are only a 17 and half stone tighthead like me, you’ve got to have everyone buying into that process. And the best teams I’ve played for, the time when I’ve been given credit for a strong scrum, it’s not been me. It’s been the pack buying into the process, especially the hooker.”

The club moved quickly in the summer to strengthen the front row with the arrival of Richmond prop Jeremy Cunnew, who was outstanding in the pre-season victories over Galwegians and East Grinstead, his former Richmond team-mate, hooker Jay Rudland-Thomas, powerful Rosslyn Park prop Lewis Brown and hooker Gavin O’Meara from Blackheath.

The new signings coupled with the existing talent of front row players like Tom Cobb, another to shine in pre-season, Rhys Boxall, Luke Murphy-Woolridge, Jon Fordham and Don Baladasan means the club have more front row depth than ever before.

“If you start to become dominant at something, especially with the scrum, you’re going to get penalties, and we’ve got outstanding kickers who are going to get you points with the boot from all over the field,” says Liffchak. “So rather than an area of weakness, we want to turn it into a points machine for us. You go to your scrum and it just releases the team.”

He adds a word of caution, however. “Don’t get me wrong, we will not have every game our way. There will be times when we go backwards or we will have a ref who doesn’t agree with the way we scrummage. It happens.”

You get the very distinct impression, however, that when it comes to scrummaging, Aaron Liffchak is not a man used to taking a backward step.