HEAD coach Will Croker believes Bournemouth’s South West Premier showdown against Ivybridge provides his side with the chance to “settle the ship”.

The Chapel Gate outfit suffered a shock 47-24 defeat at struggling Lydney two weeks ago.

With Lions without a fixture last weekend, defeats for promotion rivals Newton Abbot and Maidenhead meant they retained the second-place play-off spot.

Ivybridge did Bournemouth a favour by triumphing 49-26 against Maidenhead but Croker is not expecting such goodwill on Saturday when the Devon side come to town (3pm).

He told the Daily Echo: “When we first played Ivybridge we were really impressed. Their backs were almost as good as anything out there.

“We know it’s a chance for us to settle the ship and get ourselves back in the right position in terms of how we play on the pitch.

“Rather than chase the win, we have to chase the performance. If you concentrate on performing well, the result usually takes care of itself.”

Despite no first-team fixture last weekend, Croker revealed Lions had been hard at work.

“We had a live training session against Hampshire last Tuesday. It was excellent and we got a lot from it,” he added.

“We got to see some of the guys from the seconds against decent opposition in a training game.”