A truly remarkable season will end for Hartpury College at Blackheath on Saturday.

Confirmed champions of National League One before the end of March – itself an amazing achievement – it is somehow fitting that one of the newest teams on the block will end their best ever campaign at the world’s oldest open rugby club.

Hartpury, who only joined the league pyramid structure in 2004, have swept all before them this season as they have raced to the title.

For the club’s new director of rugby John Barnes, it has been the stuff of dreams. When he took over from Alan Martinovic at the end of last season after serving as head coach for the previous six years, he could never even in his most optimistic moments have thought the season would unfold as it has.

Not that there’s any chance of the college settling for what they’ve got.

The planning for next season’s campaign in the Championship where they will be rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in English rugby – Bristol, London Scottish, Bedford and Nottingham to name but a few – has already started and they are not going there just to make up the numbers.

Barnes said that far from being daunted by the challenge, the college, captained for the last two seasons by number eight and under-18s coach Rhys Oakley, are looking forward to it.

“Clearly we are aware it will be a step up in standard,” he said. “We’re aware that it will be very physical and the one thing we do lack is a bit of size up front.

“The aim is to stay up. We’ll be up against a lot of semi-pro teams but we’re going to stay part-time training three mornings a week.

“We’ll add a couple of players but we’re not going to change our style too much, we’re going to go out and try to score tries.”

That ‘style’ has brought huge enjoyment to both players and supporters this season with bonus points being won even more regularly than Holly Willoughby wins TV awards.

“We’ve changed a few things in the way we attack this season,” said Barnes. “We’ve tried to play the game with more width, pace and tempo.

“A lot of teams we’ve played have got good packs and we try to run round them and score.

“We always go out with the aim of scoring four tries and getting the bonus point. We want to score four tries as soon as possible and force the opposition to chase the game which in turn opens up more gaps.”

Hartpury finished second to Richmond in 2015/16 – “We thought that was an outstanding achievement,” said Barnes – so promotion to the second tier of English club rugby has been on the college’s radar for a while and the facilities are comfortably good enough for the level.

“There are no issues,” said Barnes. “We may have to make a couple of tweaks but we’ll be playing in the Championship next season. I think our facilities are better than some of the clubs already playing there.”

The nature of college life means that there is a high turnover of players in the first team – not that it has proved too much of a burden over the years.

And Barnes can see a positive in this turnover too. “Okay, we don’t have the continuity of other teams but there is a freshness that constantly having new players in the team brings,” he said.

“At the end of the day our job is to attract the best players we can to the college. If after two years they leave us and go on to play professional rugby – or rugby at a good level – then it’s job done.”

Barnes cites the examples of two players who have been outstanding for Hartpury this season and who will be playing for Premiership clubs next season.

Lithuanian Jonas Mikalcius came to the college as a back rower but was converted to a wing. The prolific try-scorer has continued his good form of the previous campaign when he was so impressive that he was offered and signed a contract with Harlequins – a deal that allowed him to continue playing for Hartpury this season.

He will be joined at the elite level of club rugby next season by Jake Polledri.

The blindside flanker was released by Bristol Academy but such has been his form for Hartpury that he recently signed a three-year contract with Gloucester.

• Blackheath were founded in 1858 and went open in 1862.