A THIRD five-point win on the bounce for Bradford & Bingley has lifted them to eighth place in North One East, almost equidistant from the relegation zone and a play-off spot.

The Bees have further chances to keep climbing the table in the coming weeks as they face Huddersfield YMCA, Malton & Norton and Percy Park in their next three fixtures – sides who are in a similar position to the Bees.

However, their performance against West Hartlepool was far from a thing of beauty as they edged a 24-16 victory.

West Hartlepool's committee had been saying how poor their side might be due to a lack of players, yet the visitors showed as much as the home side and will feel unlucky not to have come away with at least a losing bonus point.

Wests took the lead with a sixth-minute penalty and the game settled into a familiar pattern of the Bees dominating up front and then somehow making a hash of anything they tried away from the pack.

With two 18-year-olds at flanker, there may have been a worry that the Bees back row could have been a bit light – but Louis Fraser always seemed to wriggle over the gain line and Will Broadbent, making his debut, tackled everything that came his way.

On 25 minutes, the Bees were finally able to get their side of the scoreboard going as a comedy of errors in the bottom left-hand corner led to Benny Greaves' neat kick being completely missed by the Wests full back as he slid across to push the ball into touch.

It bobbled up nicely to James Morton, who arm-wrestled a defender out of the way and then dived over the prone full back to score.

Ten minutes later, the Bees were on the scoreboard again, this time through their pack.

The Bees eight had the Wests forwards going backwards at a rate of knots and when a player tried to scoop the ball out of the reversing scrum, the referee had to award the penalty try.

Yet the referee was the only one on the pitch who seemed aware that a penalty try is an automatic seven points.

Leading 12-3 at the interval, the hosts soon extended their advantage, with No 8 Tom Cummins barging over from a turned-over scrum.

Wests had a purple patch between the 47th and 64th minutes, running in two scores and collecting a penalty to pin the Bees back to 17-16.

But the visitors never really looked likely to push on and, with play largely in the visitors' 22, a moment of pace and power from centre Dennis Tuffour led to him going over under the posts with four minutes left for Morton to convert.