HAT-TRICK hero Dan Stewart says the rivalry with fellow wing wonder Adam Higgins has been fuelling their try-scoring exploits.
Wide man Stewart crashed over for his first ever treble for The Lions on Saturday in their 63-0 South West Premier bonus-point win over Newton Abbot.
But after Higgins set him up for the second score out of his three on 55 minutes, Stewart said his team-mate may try and steal all of the credit.
Stewart said: “It feels really good to have scored my first hat-trick for the club, but to be honest any day in which I score more tries than Adam Higgins is a bonus - but it was absolutely outstanding.
“The rivalry between me and Adam started out as a bit of a joke between us in pre-season training and now it has sort of materialised into a bit more of a friendly rivalry.
“But to be fair to him he did give me my second try so as long as we are both still scoring tries then it does not really matter who is scoring them.
“I will give him the credit for my second try after he set me up for it - he does not even have to take the credit for it.
“There is a little bit of a tally of our tries going on in our heads - so we have been keeping score.”
Just seven days previously, Will Croker’s side suffered their first defeat of the season after falling 28-16 to a Will Greenwood-coached Maidenhead side.
Stewart said the emphasis in training had been on producing the perfect response, and they bounced back to winning ways in style.
He added: “To be honest, everything just functioned really well, and it was really nice to bounce back after last week’s defeat.
“Bouncing back has just been all of the chat from the coaches all week - Jon Sanchez and Will Croker - well ‘bouncebackability’ is what they said and I think we definitely showed them we are capable of that because we were outstanding today.”