Bees
It's Park strife as Bees go out West
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| Fly half Tom Rhodes is one of five Bees absentees on Saturday |
Bradford & Bingley travel to West Park St Helens on Saturday for a National League Three North game they didn't really want.
The sides met last week, also at West Park, and the Bees were 10-6 ahead when the match was abandoned because of a waterlogged pitch.
Rugby Football Union regulations state that the game must be replayed on the first available Saturday, which is tomorrow, but the Bees, who still need one more win to assure them of avoiding relegation, were worried about sending a weakened team.
"It is (former skipper) Barry Clark's stag do this weekend and we have lost some players to that, while others had made alternative arrangements because it was a non-league Saturday," explained Bees player-coach Neil Spence.
"Also I don't think West Park wanted to play it, also for player availability reasons.
"We would much rather tag this match on at the end of the season but now West Park face the possibility of being relegated in the last match of the season by one of their great rivals, Preston Grasshoppers."
Spence, who has been working hard this week to get a representative side together, has managed to pull Patrick Pole, Steve Brimacombe, Phil Greaves and himself back into the squad.
However, they will be without Rob Padgett, Rob Wilson, Rodney Turner, Ben Grange and Tom Rhodes.
And consequently they give a first-team debut to flanker Dan Cookson, and call up winger Marcus Dracup and replacement prop Paul McCumiskey, all of whom played for the Bees Thirds in the Aire-Wharfe Cup on Tuesday.
"It is a game we want to win - we don't want to stay up on the back of other teams' efforts," added Spence of the trip to West Park.
Bradford & Bingley (at West Park St Helens): B Greaves; D Moore, R Tafa, P Greaves, M Dracup; S Brimacombe, J Bartlett; R Raper, J Whitfield, I Judson, R Hughes, P Pole, D Cookson, N Spence, J Warren. Replacements: P McCumiskey, I Clunis, J Fawcett, R Scull.
10:29pm Thursday 3rd April 2008
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