North One East: Wheatley Hills 19 Bradford & Bingley 54

BRADFORD & Bingley scored seven tries in notching a sixth successive win to narrow the gap on leaders West Hartlepool to five points.

A clear top five has now been established of West, Penrith, Alnwick, Pocklington and the Bees, who face some crucial matches, with Penrith visiting Wagon Lane on Saturday before Martin Whitcombe's men travel to Alnwick the weekend after.

Should the Bees come out of these matches and Morpeth at home on December 17 in good shape, there is no let-up as Pocklington away and West Hartlepool are their first matches in 2017.

The revolving door of selection continued last weekend, with the match-day 18 showing seven changes from the previous week and, while the lack of consistent selection is not ideal for Whitcombe and his coaches, there are enough good players at the core of the squad so that performances remain consistently good.

Bradford & Bingley expected an abrasive welcome from bottom club Wheatley Hills, and were not disappointed as they remained robust in the tight exchanges from first to last, but were in part architects of their own downfall as a string of yellow cards gave the visitors a numerical advantage for a large part of the second half.

Whitcombe said: "We knew they would want to knock us about a bit and we were expecting their pack to want to bring the game to us, but they lost their discipline too often and I think in the end our better fitness and organisation told in the last quarter.

"Gerhard Nortier was again first class and ran the show from No 10. A number of the boys put in a great shift for us, but I have to give special praise to Mike Johannides, a 17-year-old starting his first full game, and he stayed with it for the whole match.

"Wheatley Hills away at the back end of November is not an ideal introduction to a full 80 minutes of senior rugby, but Mike did well and should learn from a tough experience."

At the opposite end of the age range, the Bees were able to bring Richard Tafa on from the bench to add some of his vast experience to the back line, and with Schalk Oosthuizen hobbling off with a bang on the knee, the midfield of Nortier, Tafa and Dom Copsey were able to keep the backline moving and get some width on the ball to keep it from the attritional battle between the packs.

Getting the ball in the hands of the wingers has been a long-stated ambition of Whitcombe in how he wants to see his side play as he firmly believes that few people want to watch 80 minutes of the forwards bumping and barging about in the mud.

Ryan Wilson and Adam Sutcliffe both have the pace to worry opposition defences out wide, and both were rewarded with scores in the final ten minutes, with Sutcliffe's sprint to the whitewash right on 80 minutes being picked out by Whitcombe as his play of the game.

However, the Bees pack were not going to finish the game without having a say in proceedings as Ryan Wederell barged over for a score to add to his brace last week.

The Bees opened the scoring with 13 unanswered points from Oosthuizen as the centre claimed his eighth try of the campaign and slotted two penalties and a conversion in the opening quarter of an hour.

Wheatley Hills replied with a converted try to close out the first quarter, but the visitors extended their advantage as Tom Cummins added his third try of the season from close range on 29 minutes.

This was matched almost immediately by another score for the home side as the Bees were perhaps guilty of getting too involved in the forward battle in the opening half.

The half time score of 18-12 must have given the home side hope that they could compete if the game could be kept tight, but with Nortier's influence increasing, the Bees were starting to expand their game, and Copsey stretched the lead to 23-12 after 51 minutes.

Nortier tacked on the extras and was then over the whitewash himself as the Bees claimed the four-try bonus point with 23 minutes left.

With the home side visibly tiring and their defence increasingly stretched, it was no surprise that the visitors capped their day with three further scores in the final ten minutes.