Bournemouth playmaker Grant Hancox says his side’s versatility gives them an edge in the South West Premier promotion race.
Hancox himself has been operating at full-back for the majority of this campaign, but the Hartpury College graduate can also operate at ten or nine - if needed to.
He says that demonstrates the individual skill sets of the Lions’ players and when someone is injured or unavailable, then the next man can just as easily fill the void.
He said: “It just gives us great versatility and almost a need to not have ‘specialist position players’ because we have only got 18 players we could use all day.
“At the next level up, yes you have five replacements so you have a squad of 20 which makes things slightly easier for the coaching staff for selection but it is not a job I envy that is for sure.
“It gives us really good versatility and we are working really well as a unit, and look at the depth we have.
“If you look at our back line who were playing last Saturday against Exeter University and you look at our third team who were playing Oakmedians, then you could quite happily swap out that entire backline with them and be confident we could all do a decent job.”
The fact a player as skilful as Mike Pope has been playing on the wing for the start to the campaign again shows the options which the coaching staff have at their disposal.
Will Croker also picked two ‘specialist sevens’ to combat the breakdown battle with Exeter on Saturday in Ben Russell and Hamish Renwick, and Hancox said it gives the coaching team plenty of options.
Hancox added: “We had Mike Pope as well last Saturday - who can also play ten - so you could almost say there were three tens out there, with me and Adam Davis too.
“My true position from back in the olden days is scrum-half so you could say we have Sam Hardcastle and Mike Pope who could play there too.
“So we are very versatile and having two sevens allowed us to have a quick tackle which allowed us to compete at ruck time, which is good physicality.
“Against a team like Exeter University who are very fit and very quick - you need that speed off the back of the ruck and in terms of our speed off the bat it just showed today when we made a replacement after Mike Pope had been on the wing and moved to nine that it was seamless.”