FORMER professional star Tim Collier has revealed he is ready to dust off his boots in a bid to enhance Lions’ National League chances.
The Bournemouth forwards coach has featured occasionally as a player since joining the club as part of David Dunn’s backroom team.
Collier has been an influential figure during Lions’ National Three South West title and promotion triumph this season.
A 6ft 7ins second row with Harlequins, Worcester and London Welsh earlier in his career, the ex-England under-21s lock is considering making more regular on-field appearances next term.
And Poole-based Collier believes his experience could prove useful as Bournemouth try to adjust to life in English rugby’s fourth tier.
He told the Daily Echo: “I think I will put myself on the list of players that are 50 per cent committed.
“Taking no credit away from any of the boys, I will put myself in the team if I am deserving and worthy of a place – if I am training and fit enough.
“The only thing I feel a lot of the boys lack in is experience – sealing off games and using that little bit of experience to guide the way home.
“In the next league, if you put yourselves in positions you shouldn’t be in during the last quarter of games, then people will score tries and you will lose in the last five minutes.
“I am going to put myself on the line to get fit and play but how much I will play, I don’t know.”
Lions have already begun planning for National Two South next season – where players will face extra demands including additional travelling.
Collier added: “We need to sit down and go through the players and find out who is committed 100 per cent and who is committed 50 per cent.
“Because we are an amateur team, anyone who is committed 50 per cent is still on board.
“If they are going to say they can only do one away game a month, we have got to manage it right and say ‘he can have that week off and he can come that week’.”
The champions, who sealed the crown with victory over Weston-super-Mare last weekend, close their record-breaking campaign with a trip to Oxford Harlequins tomorrow.
Fly-half Dan Pollard, unavailable for the Weston win, returns to the Lions squad. But centre Scott Chislett (ankle), Anthony Dunkerley (groin) and Robbie Searle (unavailable) all miss the final game of the season.
Lions: (from) K Lynch, Bruce, Connolly, Edwards, Flynn, Pollard, Hardcastle, Hughes, Hart, Hennings, Forrest, Seward, Wiseman, Manning, Wilford, Cawley, Burns, Stewart.
• Full coverage and pictures from Lions’ final league game at Oxford Harlequins in Monday’s Echo.
• Elsewhere tomorrow, Swanage & Wareham complete their South West One East campaign at home to Reading (3pm).
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article