By Adam Hunter
Bournemouth fell to their fifth defeat in as many games this season in the club’s first match since the sudden departure of now former Director of Rugby, Will Croker.
Croker left the club with immediate effect on Friday morning, with his side due to travel to mid-table Old Albanians twenty four hours later. Lions visited the Hertfordshire side who, before Saturday, had two wins and two losses so far this campaign. The traveling fans were excited to see the debut of summer signing Rich Galloway, a former England age-group player who also represented Scotland at the u-20 World Cup in 2015.
After a gruelling opening to the season that saw them face three of last year’s runaway top five, Bournemouth were looking for their first points in the league at OAs. But it was a familiar story as the hosts crossed through centre Joshua Hallett, with fly-half Joe Butler converting to put his side 7-0 up within the opening exchanges. The teams then exchanged tries in a tense first half, with Bournemouth second-row Harry Leadbeater scoring a close range effort, before rampaging OAs number eight Oliver Stonham crossed again for to put the hosts ahead 15-7 at the break.
A blistering start to the second half put OAs out of sight, as star man Stonham, scrum-half Morgan Thompson and hooker Jamie Townsend all went over in the first ten minutes. Had Butler brought his kicking boots the scoreboard could have looked a lot worse for Lions, who took rare consolation from a try from half-time substitute Scott Chislett, converted by fly-half Grant Hancox. But two further late tries for OAs from centre Nico Defeo and substitute Daniel Watt gave them a deserving 39-14 victory.
Old Albanians Chairman, Rory Davies said after the match, “The Bournemouth lads today had a good attitude, but they lacked a little bit of experience. They won the league last year by a massive margin, but it just shows the difference between the leagues below and this level.
“I thought we were quite poor today. But we have been developing a young side for a while now, and they knew what to do.”
Bournemouth President, Doug Warren, agreed.
“Ultimately it was disappointing to give away so many points, largely through our own mistakes,” he said.
“Poor kicking and losing the ball in the contact. We could have had four tries ourselves.”
Bournemouth prop Luca Firetto, interviewed after letting the dust settle added a familiar refrain, “Going to sleep for seven minutes cost us. We were well in it at half-time, we just needed to come out firing. Unfortunately a few errors cost us. It is just about trying to string together eighty minutes of a performance.”
