LONG-serving scrum-half Sam Hardcastle insisted Lions had emerged with plenty of positives – despite slumping to a sixth successive defeat.

Hardcastle, the club’s record try scorer, gave his verdict on Bournemouth’s alarming form following a 33-17 home defeat to high-flying Cambridge yesterday.

Tries from Mike Ayrton, Dan Hemingway and a double from lock Robert Conquest ensured the visitors grabbed a bonus-point win at Chapel Gate.

But it could have been a different story for Lions after they had led at the interval thanks to tries from Scott Chislett and Russell Westcott.

Hardcastle told the Daily Echo: “I was a little bit disappointed, to be honest.

“We went out there with the idea to play with smiles on our faces and enjoy it. We have had bad results recently so we wanted to play with freedom and put in a good performance. We did that in the first half and looked good. In the second half, we just let it slip a couple of times and they got in and scored.

“At half-time, the belief was there. We have been in similar positions recently and came out with the belief that we could win, we stuck at it, didn’t give up and we couldn’t have done much more.”

Having fallen behind early in the second period, Bournemouth had a chance to draw level on 58 minutes. After winger Alex Sutherland had touched down, full-back Dan Pollard’s conversion attempt flew narrowly wide to leave Cambridge still holding a two-point advantage.

The visitors, who were relegated into National Two South this season, then showed their class as the impressive James Wigglesworth picked a gap in the Lions defence to offload neatly for Conquest to add his second try of the afternoon.

Number eight Hemingway then put Cambridge out of sight as he scored on the back of a powerful drive to claim the bonus point, meaning Lions have now conceded 58 tries in 12 league games.

Hardcastle added: “If we had played like we did on Saturday over the past few weeks, we probably would have got a few positive results.

“We showed that we can play good rugby. In the past few games, we had gone into our shells a little bit and not performed but this was much better.

“We got the ball wide and made some good ground through doing that.

“That is a positive to take out of the game to go into next week.”

Director of rugby Budge Pountney was understood to have missed Saturday’s match to embark on a scouting mission, with the Lions chief believed to have been running the rule over upcoming opponents and potential new signings.

Lions: Pollard, Stewart, Sutherland, Chislett, Westcott, McGowan, Hardcastle, Terry, Vaughan-Edwards, Manning, Peart, Fuller, Rees, Peters, Hart. Subs: Scott, Wiseman, Grace, Bovett, Gray.