PROUD Will Croker saw Bournemouth rip apart Old Patesians before hailing the cleverness of his top-of-the-class performers.

Lions ran in 11 tries as they thrashed the National Three South West strugglers 69-12, the visitors' troubles compounded by the dismissal of number-eight John Barker early in the second half.

Grant Hancox smashed through the 100-point barrier for the season with a couple of fine tries and seven successful conversions, while Matt Christopher and Charlie Levey recorded their maiden scores.

Wyn Roberts and Alex Sutherland both crossed twice and Scott Chislett, Luke Chandler and Jack Hennings also touched down in the Chapel Gate rout.

Croker told the Daily Echo: "On some occasions in the past we haven't been clever but Saturday was a really intelligent performance. Allied to the improvement in our skill set, we looked like a team that wanted to play for each other.

"We played rugby in the right areas of the pitch, didn't force the game and kicked intelligently.

"They were perhaps a little less conditioned than us and we played to the widest expanses of the pitch, stretched them as much as we could and identified mismatches so we had our fast guys against their big guys in space.

"We looked up, saw what was in front of us and played the conditions accordingly.

"There were some good performances and Grant was absolutely sensational. Every time he got the ball he looked a threat and it was great to see him on form."

Hancox got the scoreboard ticking over when he scooped up a loose ball and sped in, with Chislett crossing the whitewash in similar fashion soon after.

Roberts's pace allowed Lions to extend the advantage with Hancox's second straight conversion helping matters, the three-quarter then scoring a converted try from inside his own half to seal a bonus point.

The returning Alan Manning, who lasted around half an hour before retiring with a hamstring tweak, played his part in the build-up to a converted Chandler try and then Sutherland scored wide on the left.

Old Pats pulled back an unconverted try through Barker and the number-eight crossed again for a converted try following the restart, only to be sent off for aiming a punch at Sutherland immediately after.

Christopher got Lions back on track when he finished off a surging move and Hancox added the extras, with Roberts then grabbing his second.

Replacement lock Levey bulldozed over for a converted try and Hennings made it 62-12.

Sutherland then completed the try-scoring when he latched on to Sammy Veneroso's grubber-kick, with Hancox slotting the conversion.

Reflecting on Barker's dismissal, Croker added: "I thought it was a bit harsh. I thought a yellow card would have sufficed, especially as we were well ahead at that stage.

"The pleasing thing was that when they went down to 14 men we didn't get loose and try and play Barbarian-style rugby. We kept to our shape and pattern and the sending-off did not influence things too much."

Lions: Sutherland, Chandler, Hancox, Chislett, Roberts, Gwyther, Hardcastle, Tarrant, Fraser, Firetto, Christopher, Treloar, Manning, Rees, Hennings. Replacements: Giunta, Levey, Veneroso.