BOURNEMOUTH will face Tottonians in the league for the first time in their history, despite being separated by just 26 miles.

The Lions travel to Totton on Saturday, September 21, with their hosts having made a perfect start to the season, winning both of their games so far this season.

Bournemouth come into the game off the back of a bonus point win over Chobham at Chapel Gate last weekend.

Ex-Bournemouth fly-half Robbie Searle will be starting for the hosts today and is among a few changes for the home side after they narrowly beat Petersfield 26-30 last week.

For Bournemouth, there are a number of enforced changes due to a wedding and work commitments.

(Image: Photo: Simon Carlton)

James Stephens comes in at number 8 after an injury in pre-season, replacing last week’s man-of-the-match Matt Horne.

Fiifi Adjaye comes in on the wing opposite Maverick Goodchild, while Josh Sanchez has returned to university and is replaced by Grant Hancox, with Sam Palmer starting at 12.

The Lions have brought some experience into the back row, with Ben Kimber will be playing his first game for the season.

Lucas Quera is injured and former first team captain Joe Rees comes onto the bench.

Director of rugby, Will Croker, said: “Preview this week playing against Tottonians, who’ve had a great start, winning both their matches.

“We know that they're a good team. They finished, I think, third last season behind Winchester and Jersey.

“Through their social media they've made no sort of secret of the fact that they're looking to get promoted this year.

“They lost a couple of players to Havant in the closed season but they have got some experience.

(Image: Photo: Simon Carlton)

“It's always a difficult place to go. It's a relatively tight knit community there and they always come out and are quite vociferous in their support.

“So we’ve just got to go there and try and rise above that.

“We've taken the positives and the learnings from last week. The major positive being the way that we scored the tries in the first hour of the game.

“We scored some really, really good tries and it all came from our ability to get our big ball carriers across the gain line which allowed our backs to play.”

Croker said his side were looking forward to the clash.

“We're looking to express ourselves,” he said.

“We are going to try and dominate the set piece.

“We've got a big pack of forwards and we're looking to try and really sort of get stuck into them, get across the gain line and play some great rugby.”