Points Crusade has been an overall success for chief Stean
DINGS Crusaders director of rugby Stean Williams has achieved his target of breaking the club’s record points tally in National 2 South.
The Bristol side look on course for a top-eight finish with their current points tally of 82 easily surpassong their previous record of 67 – a goal that Williams set out at the start of the season.
“The club have been in National 2 for around 20 years, bar a few seasons out, and for me it was about beating the most points the club had previously,” he said. “We’ve done that now so that’s the highlight of the season for me.”
Waylon Gasson’s lastgasp try secured a dramatic late victory for Dings over cross-town rivals Clifton last weekend and Williams believes that will be the stand-out moment of the supporters this season.
“If you ask the fans for their highlight, I’m fairly certain all of them would say beating Clifton away last weekend,” he smiled.
Overall, however, Dings have endured an inconsistent campaign that saw them start strongly, go through a bad patch before Christmas, followed by a seven-game unbeaten run.
Williams said: “It would be great for us to finish in the top half of the table. We started well and then had a difficult
period over October-November where we got hit really hard by injuries. Early on we were losing tight games by a score; we lost to Guernsey by a couple of points and lost to a couple of others by similar margins as well.
“We’re not a professional team, we’re not even a semi-professional team, so we don’t have lots of strength in depth, even though we’ve got a great second team. You’ve got to have strong depth in this league to cope with the injuries we’ve had. The break over Christmas allowed some of our key players to come back and we’ve won nine from ten since.”
Hooker Thomas Anderson has been a key figure for Dings this season scoring 17 tries in 25 games, leaving his DoR full of praise.
“Tom is a great committed player with the right attitude,” Williams added. “We’ve had a dominant driving line out and he’s been fortunate to have been on the back of a lot of them but that’s a skill in its own right. We hope he’s round for the foreseeable future.”