DIRECTOR of rugby David Dunn defended his Lions and referee Keith Lewis despite Bournemouth almost falling victim to a comeback of Lazarus proportions.
The Chapel Gate outfit were left desperately clinging on to a 30-27 victory over 14-man Taunton after leading by 22 points 10 minutes from time.
Aron Struminski, Sam Richardson and Gary Kingdom all ran in late efforts for the visitors before a controversial incident where Struminski was taken out by Dan Connolly’s high tackle in stoppage time left the pendulum swinging in Taunton’s favour.
Although the Titans winger was 30 yards from the try line, he appeared to be in the clear with visiting players and officials calling for a penalty try.
But referee Lewis was unmoved and awarded only a penalty with Lions seeing out their third win in a row.
Despite the contentious call, however, Dunn felt fortune had balanced itself out.
The Lions chief told the Daily Echo: “There were many questionable decisions throughout the game, though I thought the referee controlled it particularly well. I don’t think Taunton have any cause for concern about decisions because they were lucky on several occasions.
“There was a similar incident under the posts that could have seen them have another player sent off and us awarded a penalty try.”
In the end, it was Dan Pollard Lions had to thank for their victory, the star decisively registering points with all six of his kicks.
Last year’s player-of-the-season, who only lined up at fly-half because Ben Stevenson was ill, kicked his final penalty on the hour to put the hosts 30-8 in front.
With the Titans reduced to 13 men at the time and a four-try bonus point in the offing, the choice to kick was open to debate, but after Taunton’s mammoth fightback, all 15 of Pollard’s points proved pivotal.
And while praising his stand-in number 10, Dunn also defended the decision, adding: “My philosophy is to take every point you can.
“If we had not kicked those three points we would have had a drawn game which would have been a travesty, so I rest my case.
“Losing Ben Stevenson on the day of the game meant we had to rearrange fairly hastily, but Dan is such a versatile player and stepped up to the plate. He ran the game and his kicking won us the match.”
On Taunton’s fightback, the Lions’ chief said: “We knew that Taunton would keep playing for 80 minutes and we knew they would play from all over the field. That proved to be spot on and it wasn’t a surprise to us.
“When you get so far in front at this level you need to know how to close out a game and one or two of our decisions in the last five or six minutes weren’t very clever. There was a little bit of naivety, but that is part of our learning curve.”
Lions: Trow, O'Brien, Connolly, Chilsett, Stewart, Pollard, Hardcastle, Featherstone (Carrel 59), Manning, Firetto (Peart, 71), Seward (Wilford, 71), Forrest, Grace, Cawley, Hart. Unused subs: Higgins, Pearce.
Bournemouth scorers: Tries – Connolly 18, Stewart 37, Featherstone 55. Penalties – Pollard 7, 23, 62. Conversions – Pollard 19, 37, 56.
Taunton scorers: Tries – Charlton 10, Struminski 70, Richardson, 76, Kingdom 79. Penalty – Kingdom 28. Conversions – Kingdom 71, 80.
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