Shiells swapped Newcastle Falcons for life at Bath over the summer and finds himself in a scrap with Paul James, Nathan Catt and impressive youngster Nick Auterac for the No.1 jersey.

It means Shiells has yet to play a competitive minute for Bath but he has circled the LV= Cup opener against London Welsh this Saturday as a golden opportunity to rectify the situation.

And he admits it could well be an audition that sets up the rest of his season as he aims to turn the coaching staff’s heads.

“I am fit and ready to play but when you’ve got players like Paul James and Nathan Catt in front of you it’s hard,” said the 25-year-old.

“Nick Auterac has done really, really well for himself as well.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult to get in front of those boys when they’re playing as well as they are and, when the team is winning too, it’s always going to be hard for a coach to justify dropping anybody.

“Hopefully I will get a crack at the first team and hopefully when I do I’ll make the most of it and give the coaches a bit more of a headache as they’ll have somebody else to choose from.

“Being a player is all about being ready when the chance comes. I really hope I can play some LV= Cup matches, that would be the obvious choice and the coaches will probably want to give some of the other boys a break.” It is easy to draw comparisons between Shiells and fellow prop Davey Wilson’s career trajectory, who has never looked back after heading down from Falcons to the south west five years ago.

And Shiells says there is enough evidence from his time at Bath already to suggest he too can make great strides.

“I’ve really enjoyed it here since moving down from Newcastle,” he added. “Obviously it was a very big move for myself, not only professionally but personally as well because being from Scotland I could always get home very easily from there.

“Coming down here was a big thing for me but all the boys at the club have been really good to me, helped me out and been really welcoming.

“The coaches have been exactly the same and even in the short time I’ve been here I’ve learnt a lot from them. So I really do think it was a key move from me in my development.

“Change is always a good thing and for me, coming to a club that’s doing as well as this with the calibre of players I’m training against, I was always going to improve as a player.” Round 1 of the LV= Cup starts this weekend Saturday 1 – Sunday 2 November. For more information visit lv.com/rugby or follow @LVRugby