WILL Croker watched Bournemouth perform a nine-try demolition job on Bracknell before admitting he had seen the superb display coming.

Lions powered away after a tight opening quarter to bank their biggest win of the season in National Three South West, with replacements Ali Bennett and Andrew Kingswell grabbing their maiden tries for the first XV.

And head coach Croker could not contain his delight at a 67-13 home victory which gave his team a third win in four and moved Lions to within three points of the top five.

He told the Daily Echo: "The intensity over the past few weeks has been at that level but this is the first time we've brought the intensity level and the performance element at the same time.

"We knew it was coming, you could feel it in training.

"We were a little bit undercooked when we came out but once we had that little shock to the system we snapped into gear and realised controlling the ball was the most important thing.

"Once we did that, we then started to win the collisions and winning the collisions and owning the gain line in this league means your backs have got that little bit more time to manipulate space, so I was really pleased with how we bounced back.

"We scored some stunning tries and what was so nice was we did that having made a few changes. Robbie Boyd, Chris Jeffes and Andrew Kingswell came in so we had an unfamiliar back division and I was delighted with the verve and energy they played with.

"The reason they were able to play like that was because our back row was so dominant."

Bournemouth trailed 13-6 some 24 minutes in with the hosts' points coming from the boot of full-back Grant Hancox.

However, that was where Bracknell's scoring finished. Lions duo Luca Firetto and Joe Rees crossed from close range and a couple of Hancox conversions made it 20-13 at the break.

The floodgates opened in the second half, Sam Hardcastle getting matters going before Bennett crossed, the latter minutes later providing a superb offload for loosehead prop Andy Spikings to touch down.

Hancox converted all three of these scores but it hardly mattered when he missed the target after Hardcastle had scored his second try with 12 minutes left.

Alex Everett-Bolter, Kingswell and Wyn Roberts completed the rout in the final 10 minutes, with Hancox adding three further conversions.

Lions: Hancox, Jeffes, Everett-Bolter, Gleadowe, Roberts, Boyd, Hardcastle, Spikings, Richardson, Firetto, Levey, Kenneally, Hennings, McDonald, Rees. Replacements: Bennett, Kingswell, Yates.