Bournemouth Director Of Rugby Will Croker pinpointed the third quarter of their 54-14 South West Premier bonus-point win over Cleve as vital to their success.

The rampant Lions had wrapped up the four-try scoring bonus point by the interval before the visitors then had a man sent off.

But the damage had already been done in a punishing opening period of play, before some honest words at the break helped refocus his players’ minds.

Croker said: “At times we were inaccurate in the lineout, and we were not penetrative enough at times.

“But once we got to half-time - and even though we were up - we all had a bit of an honesty chat and took the positives from it.

“But we then just said ‘right we need to come out for the next 20 minutes and really put some shape into our game’ and we did that.”

The in-form Lions made it six bonus-point South West Premier victories in their first seven outings after grabbing another seven tries to boost their points column.

But once they had the game wrapped up by the break, Croker said it was more about putting a lid on any potential fight back from tenth placed Cleve.

Croker added: “We always fancied ourselves to score four tries, but for me it was more about trying to make sure we had a big enough lead that it would sort of kill the game off, and I felt like we had.

“So the bonus point was great but it was actually getting to that point where they were killed off which was where we needed to get to.

“We were pleased to have secured the bonus point by half-time - which was a target which we had set ourselves.”

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