North One East: Dinnington 10 Bradford & Bingley 17

BRADFORD & Bingley bagged a fourth win in succession, taking their recent tally to 19 points from a possible 20.

Three of those games were on the road, and the results mean that Martin Whitcombe's side are the form team in North One East.

The Bees are fifth in the table, but are the only side in the top five to have played only four of their opening ten fixtures at home, with Alnwick and Penrith, second and third in the ladder, both having played six home fixtures.

While the results on the field are beginning to show an admirable consistency, the team selection is not.

Whitcombe and his coaches were forced to make seven changes in personnel to the match-day 18, as well as a number of positional changes, from the side which won at Guisborough the previous week.

The Bees might hope to be able to put down the constant changes to the squad as rotation, but the reality is that the players available on one Saturday have not been the same the following week all season, so the recent winning run is all the more remarkable.

With Corey Spencer, Connor Capper and Mike Johannides forming the Bees bench, the combined age of those three players is less than the 55 years on Whitcombe's clock, but the younger players at Wagon Lane are proving themselves worthy of selection and will be in the mix on merit if the Bees ever have a full squad available.

Coming into this fixture, the Bees were expecting their hosts to field a big pack who wanted to present a physical challenge, and much of the game was expected to be an arm wrestle.

The visitors were not disappointed as the home forwards never relented from their attritional approach.

Added to the physicality of the home side was the slope on the Dinnington pitch which the home side know how to use to maximum effect.

However, the Bees pack stood toe to toe with the home eight. and perhaps had an advantage in their reaction time in gathering anything that ran loose.

Bradford & Bingley's loose forwards were also first into the breakdown and managed to steal the ball out of the tackle area on a number of occasions.

Sam White, Max Mountain and hooker Masui Akuoala all showed up well in these close encounters, barely missing a tackle between them and all can be credited with a number of burglaries as the man in possession hit the deck.

In the engine room for the Bees pack, Harry Jeffrey had an immense game, showing no after effects from his recent injury, and carried the ball well whenever the Bees pack got a chance to get on the front foot.

With Tom Booth and Tom Cummins supporting Jeffries in taking the game back to Dinnington, the home game plan of over powering the visiting eight was largely negated, and perhaps the Bees possessed just that extra bit of pace and guile in the backline, which gave them enough of an edge to claim the win.

With forwards coach Ali Macdonald again pressed into service as an inside centre, perhaps the Bees backline could be forgiven for not being completely silky smooth with ball in hand, but Macdonald is an immense presence in midfield and always requires the attention of two tacklers to stop when gets the ball, and conversely stops most traffic sent in his direction when the opposition have a run.

Either side of Macdonald were Gerhard Nortier and Schalk Oosthuizen, who collected all the Bees points on the afternoon, and with scrum half Lee Neha growing in confidence, the Bees backs are becoming a force to be reckoned with, which will only become more evident when Whitcombe has a full complement of backs to select from in the next few weeks.

Nortier opened the scoring with a 35th-minute try, Oosthuizen adding the extras to give the visitors a 7-0 advantage at the break.

Dinnington were now playing with the slope and opened the second half in fine form and had a 10-7 advantage as a converted try and a penalty were added to the scoresheet by the 55th minute.

The Bees did not panic, however, and gradually started to make inroads back up the slope.

With Nortier pulling the strings at fly half, there was always a possibility that a rabbit might be pulled from the proverbial hat and, after failing to get a five-pointer, Nortier calmed any Bees nerves, bringing the scores level with a drop goal.

The three points going up on the board obviously lifted the Wagon Lane men as Nortier was over the whitewash for a try with the next Bees foray in Dinnington territory.

Oosthuizen slotted the conversion, but with more than ten minutes left on the clock, the Bees could not relax, but the defensive wall was not breached and the four points for the win were in the bag.