Will Croker said the battle to be the all-time Bournemouth top points’ scorer made for an entertaining afternoon.
In their final run out of a successful season, The Lions surged to a comfortable 80-3 drubbing of South West Premier basement boys Old Patesians at Chapel Gate.
With the chance to score 1000 points for the season just missed out on, Croker said the rivalry between halfbacks Sam Hardcastle and Grant Hancox made up for it.
The Director Of Rugby said: “I am absolutely delighted with that today and in some ways getting 999 points is almost as good as getting 1000 points.
“Especially with Sammy Hardcastle trying to keep his record ahead of Grant Hancox by running into the corner to make it a more difficult kick for him.
“That probably did not help, but we said to the boys leading up to the game we did not want to do too much showboating and in the first half it was a bit stop-start and we did not really get a huge amount of flow going but in the second half we scored some wonderful tries.”
The Level Five champions put on an exhibition of exhilarating attacking rugby, with no less than seven different scorers of their 11 tries.
Following some stubborn resistance from the visitors for the opening half an hour, there were then first-half scores from centre Freddie Gleadowe, wing Adam Higgins and the first of four scores from Hardcastle.
But with only one of those eventual scorers coming from the pack in back rower Ali Bennett, Croker his forwards had laid the foundations for the victory.
Croker added: “In a game like that you need your big boys to do the hard work to create the spaces out wide.
“We always knew that if we could keep the ball for three, four or five phases then there would be space in the wider parts.
“The boys executed them well and there were some sensational scores and the try which Sammy Veneroso got at the end there was a great team try.
“Adam Higgins’ score was a great solo try so it was a really good performance.”