BOURNEMOUTH head coach Will Croker is tipping kicking king Grant Hancox to break the club’s point-scoring records.

The Lions full-back brought up the milestone of 600 league points during the 59-0 triumph over Hornets in South West Premier earlier this month.

He became only the fourth player in club history to achieve the feat.

Scrum-half Sam Hardcastle remains the all-time top scorer with 943 points and counting. But Croker is keen to see star performer Hancox run close the stalwart.

He told the Daily Echo: “When you think Grant wasn’t even place-kicking two seasons ago, to have got to that number in such a short period of time is astonishing.

“He is already through 100 points for this season and we are only 10 games in.

“He had a bit of an off-day against Hornets by his standards and was beating himself up a little bit afterwards, but that’s the pressure of being the place-kicker.

“You get all the plaudits when you knock them over but, unfortunately, you get some criticism when you miss a few.

“Grant’s nature is such that he will beat himself up for an hour or two after and then he will forget about it. We are very lucky to have him.

“He is still a very young man. We have a lot of rugby to come from him and I am pretty certain he will break all the point-scoring records.”

Hancox has already set the bar for most points during a campaign, with a record 296 accumulated for Bournemouth last season.

Croker admitted he had an embarrassment of riches to choose from in the place-kicking department, but the full-back remained his number-one choice.

“Adam Davies was an 80 per cent kicker for me at Basingstoke,” the Lions director of rugby added.

“He is a wonderful goal-kicker and for him not to be kicking shows how well Grant is doing.

“Even our third-choice kicker is Alex Sutherland, who kicks for Hampshire. He kicked very successfully for Hampshire at Twickenham a couple of seasons back.”

Hancox is set to be part of Lions’ starting line-up when they visit Maidenhead in South West Premier on Saturday (2.30pm).

Bournemouth are currently third in the table with seven wins from their opening 10 games. Maidenhead are fifth having won five and lost five this season.