North One East: Bradford & Bingley 33 Scarborough 53

WITH a new coaching team of Antony Posa and Hugh Gumbs at the helm and a desire to make a positive impression, this was not the way that Bradford & Bingley wanted to start the North One East campaign.

The duo will doubtless set about addressing the shortcomings in training, but it was home mistakes that allowed Scarborough to run away with the game in the first quarter of an hour and then killed off any hopes of a Bees revival with two tries in the opening ten minutes of the second half.

Before kick-off there had been talk around the Wagon Lane ground that the Bees would be looking to play the game at pace out wide, and with several new faces in the starting 15 it was perhaps asking too much to expect everything to gel immediately.

Having said that, the hosts were very much authors of their own downfall as they flung passes which missed their man, gave up two interceptions with two of their first ventures into Scarborough territory and seemed to be off kilter both with ball in hand and when lining up in defence.

Bradford & Bingley's woes were also compounded by two scores going missing when a home player dropped the ball with the line apparently at their mercy, once in each half.

Full back Tom Harrison got the scoreboard moving for the visitors in the fifth minute and he was followed over the whitewash by centre Jimmy Perrett within three minutes.

Perrett landed both conversions and, with the Bees hardly able to steady the ship, another defensive slip up saw Jordan Wakeham clocking up score number three before the game was 15 minutes old.

The home side did then seem to cut down on the mistakes and start to play some rugby of their own, and when Michael Crotch drove over the try line in the 25th minute, there was a glimmer of hope.

With half-time approaching, a darting run from Ben Greaves pulled the Bees back to 24-12 in arrears after new signing Lance Taylor slotted the extra points.

However, instead of going in at the interval two scores behind, the Bees found themselves behind the sticks again as Jonty Holloway burrowed in at the left corner.

A 17-point deficit is not insurmountable as the Bees have shown with a couple of notable comebacks in recent times, but it was vital that the home side got the next score to get the momentum back.

It was not to be, however, as Matty Jones and Tom Ratcliff were over the whitewash for the east-coast side in the first ten minutes of the half.

With Perrett continuing to knock over points with the boot, it was now 43-12 in favour of the visitors, and the Bees' only real hope was to claim a four-try bonus point.

Crotch brought his side within a score of that target on 55 minutes, but again momentum was lost as Scarborough romped to the other end of the field to claim their seventh try of the afternoon from Euan Govier just before the hour.

The home pack continued to bump and barge to some effect and kept taking the game to the visitors, and Tom Cummins was able to get over the line to claim the bonus point score with 66 minutes played.

Bradford & Bingley continued to press, and their efforts close to the Scarborough line were rewarded when the referee jogged under the posts to award a penalty try after he judged that some foul play by a visiting player had prevented a Bees score to the left of the posts with five minutes to play.