“WE DON'T care how we get the win. It is payback time.”

Bournemouth’s rugby team have scored more points this season than any of their rivals in National League Three South West, the fifth tier of the English rugby structure.

They boast the fourth strongest defensive record of the division’s 14 teams.

Yet they sit fifth in the table; their progress stunted by a hex that appears to plague them whenever they travel beyond the comfortable environs of their Chapel Gate home.

Alan Manning is trying to make sense of the fact his team have won only once away this season, en route to Weston-super-Mare, where the Lions’ determination to shatter their damaging hoodoo will meet strong resistance in the shape of Hornets – who just happen to be the only side to have defeated Bournemouth on their own patch this season.

Hornets beat Bournemouth 33-10 on October 22. A few of the visiting players had no qualms about reminding their vanquished counterparts of the scoreline when their paths crossed on a post-match night out.

Manning’s considered, softly-spoken demeanour, masks a burning drive to right a few wrongs on this spitefully cold day.

“There has been a lot of talk at the back of the coach about what happened on that day,” says Manning, the Lions captain.

“We saw them out in town afterwards and they gave us a bit of stick. That rubbed salt into our wounds.

“We’re going there with the intention of putting our bodies on the line from the off. We don’t care how we get the win. It is payback.

“It is not going to be malicious. But they did us at our place and in our own town – so let’s give them a bit back.”

Conversation turns to the extreme levels of commitment necessary to survive in this Bournemouth team – an anomaly among their league counterparts in that they play for no financial reward.

Manning admits he wears the result on any given Saturday for the rest of the week.

But it is kicking machine Grant Hancox – more than 200 points to his name already this season – whose humbling words encapsulate the strength of the bond that exists in this group.

“When we go to the gym in our own time on a Monday and Wednesday, as well as training on Tuesday and Thursday, we’re doing it for ourselves…but we’re also doing it to be better for that man next to us, rather than to be better for a salary,” he says, before returning to the rear of the coach, and a mix of throbbing music and questions about whether his interviewer could decode Hancox’s West Midlands’ accent.

Back on board the bus following a refuelling stop, the boisterous atmosphere had given way to a serene, quietly focused mood for the closing leg of the 86-mile journey.

These Lions players were preparing to be confronted by a twin-challenge. Not only would they have to stare down a formidable Hornets team, but their hosts for the day play on a newly installed, £1million, 3G surface.

They had welcomed three teams to their Hutton Moor Road ground since the artificial turf was laid and sent them all packing, scoring 157 points and conceding only 33 in the process.

Bournemouth’s 3G experience amounted to one training session, four days before this fixture.

Inside a sparsely lit changing room, paint peeling from tired walls and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, head coach Will Croker’s pre-match message was succinct… and unambiguous.

He implored Lions to shock their opponents, to operate at a breakneck tempo from the outset, and to believe this was their time to consign to history their troubles on the road.

“We placed the home defeat (to Hornets) in our memory bank,” added coach Jon Sanchez. “Now take it out of there and perform.

“And go home with a Big W”.

Manning reasserted his earlier exhortation: “It is about the win, I don’t care how we do it, just do it.”

The inescapable backdrop to all of this was the sight of Joe Rees, to all intents and purposes being taped together. The giant number eight had bandaging applied to his left thigh, knee and ankle. And his right shoulder.

Subsequently watching Rees in action, repeatedly charging into a crowd of confrontational opposing bodies with all the relish a thirsty worker would reserve for his first Friday night pint, provided a compelling explanation for his body's condition.

The motivational chat over, Croker left his players to their individual routines, a respectful hush swiftly being replaced by De'Lacy's Hideaway blasting out of the dressing room speakers.

Whether as a result of that music choice, the fighting talk, the pre-match porridge, rice, crisps and sweets or a simple craving for revenge, Bournemouth exploded into action on the first whistle.

Indeed, rewind a few minutes, and the warm-up had been completed with a degree of intensity that had Croker confessing he’d needed to keep his players’ feet on the ground.

He shouldn't have worried.

“Try of the season?” Sanchez asked no one in particular as Wyn Roberts collected his housemate Hancox’s pass to complete a marvellous team move and cross in the corner.

The coach found no dissenters to his query.

Dan Stewart then marked his full debut by going over to stretch Lions’ lead to 10-0. “They look demoralised” was the verdict on Hornets from the visitors’ dugout.

Bournemouth's bloodied and dazed prop, Andy Spikings, being temporarily forced from the field didn’t knock the away team off-kilter.

Roberts stole possession in his own half. Seconds later he was running in under the posts.

When the winger intercepted in identical fashion shortly after the restart, the hosts plainly believed any effort to pursue the Welsh flyer would prove futile. So they didn’t bother.

Roberts, on his haunches, patiently waited to ground the ball, at once eating up precious seconds and savouring the moment.

Hancox converted and the scoreline read a scarcely believable 27-0.

At 20-0 Croker had glanced over his shoulder to caution, “We should have killed them off.”

Pessimism or remarkable foresight? The latter.

The 3G pitch and a resurgent Hornets combined to wrest Bournemouth’s supremacy from their grasp.

Luca Firetto succumbed to an ankle injury, Mike Treloar’s hamstring gave way and Spikings' second round of battlefield surgery on his eye wound wasn’t enough to convince fresh-faced referee Henry Lowis to allow his return to the fray.

The home team amassed 17 points in the blink of an eye, Scott Chislett was yellow carded for a high tackle – he smashed his fist into the bench as he took his enforced leave – to reduce Lions to 13 men... and the momentum shift appeared decisive.

Treloar begged Croker to be allowed back into combat. The coach, admirably, refused, a fizzing Treloar's tracksuit top flying into the back of the perspex dugout as a result.

“I have a duty of care to the players as much as anything,” Croker later explained. “If he had gone on and been injured I would never have forgiven myself.

“While I commend his passion, our players are amateurs and they have to go to work on Monday.”

Bournemouth, in fact, their spirit not for breaking, coped without the immense Treloar.

With the coaching staff imploring their team to retain possession, fly-half Adam Davies opted to drop for goal.

The ball sailed between the posts to knock the stuffing from Hornets. The exceptional Davies’s subsequent, marvellous, kick for touch effectively sealed the deal. Lions had won, 30-17.

“In terms of the courage and the pride in the shirt… so many of my walking wounded were volunteering to go back on when their bodies were in absolute tatters and I’m delighted for them,” added Croker.

Hat-trick hero Roberts did his best to deflect attention elsewhere – even as a well-refreshed home supporter informed him his electric speed was solely responsible for lowering Hornets’ colours.

“I’m honoured in a way,” said Roberts. “My team-mates work their socks off to get me the ball in good positions, because they trust me to finish it.

“I’m the end product of everyone else’s hard work.”

A contented Manning said simply, "We did exactly what we had wanted to do".

Then it was time to hit the road, the coach rocking to a cacophony of victorious chants, hitherto all too rarely heard on Lions' homeward journeys this season.

The biggest roar of all arrived when laptop screens dotted around the bus relayed pictures of Elliot Daly scoring the late try that sealed England’s Six Nations triumph in Wales.

A notable victory for the Red Rose, certainly. But the story here was Bournemouth and their determination to return from Somerset with a "Big W".

Mission accomplished.