LIONS chief Budge Pountney called for his depleted side not to panic after slumping to their fourth successive National Two South defeat at the hands of Bishop’s Stortford yesterday.

A Jack Metters penalty was a mere consolation for the home side as Stortford’s Stephen Ball, Ross Bird, Sam James and Sam Winter all ran in tries for the Hertfordshire outfit.

Bournemouth have now gone a total of 188 minutes without touching down, since Jack Hennings crossed over against Hartpury College three games ago.

Pountney told the Daily Echo: “I think everybody is frustrated, you get into a bit of a streak, a losing streak and that’s where we are at the minute.

“We just need to keep nice and tight as a unit, not panic, keep pushing forward, keep going and we will get there in the end.

“It’s an attritional league to be in and the boys are frustrated, but that’s life and we’ve got to move on.”

Lions conceded five minutes into the contest when visiting number-eight Ball gathered after a powerful Stortford drive to claim the solitary score of the opening period.

Pountney’s men then enjoyed a long spell in the ascendancy during the first half but failed to return any points from their territorial control.

The former Scotland captain added: “I said at the end to the players, it’s all about applying pressure in the right places and keeping the pressure on and in the first half we did that.

“We let a score come in early, but after that we dominated and forced them to make a lot of tackles.

“In the second half we stopped applying that pressure, we let them have too many run-throughs in the outside channels, which comes from players not playing together regularly.

“We have a lot of injuries at the moment and it’s the second week running that we have run out of subs. We just have to tough it out for a while and keep working hard.”

Bournemouth suffered a massive blow when they lost skipper Alan Manning with a leg injury early on, followed by fellow front-rows Frazer Wilford and Andy Spikings who limped off during the second period.

Pountney, who recently added former Leicester, Bath and England Saxons lock Peter Short to his coaching staff, admitted the duo will have to be a calming influence ahead of Lions’ trip to Clifton next weekend.

“We have to use our experience from both our playing and coaching days,” added Pountney.

“It’s all about not panicking, we’ve had a run of defeats and it’s natural that every team will go through that.

“We are changing things and asking players to do things they haven’t been asked to do before, so things will go wrong. We just have to stick at it.”

Bournemouth now sit 13th in National Two South, a point and a place clear of the relegation places.

Lions: Goodall (Bradley, 50), Veneroso, Roberts, Stewart, Westcott, Metters, Hardcastle, Spikings (Bovett, 71), Wilford (Burns, 63), Manning (Firetto, 16), Graesser, Fuller, Grace, Vaughan-Edwards, Rees (Scott, 66).