North One East: Huddersfield YMCA 18 Bradford & Bingley 22

BEFORE the game, Bradford & Bingley's head of Rugby Martin Whitcombe said: "YMCA are the only side to have beaten us this season at home and after some very close games, one draw and two very narrow defeats in our last three, we need to get the win to restore our momentum and to get us back on track."

After the game, which Whitcombe did not rate as a spectacle, the former Leicester Tigers man said: "It wasn't a good performance, it was a poor game all round, but it was five league points in the bag from an away game and that's all the record books will show.

"I am happy with the five points, thank you very much."

One change that Whitcombe made to his starting XV which was not forced on him by injury was to give Mat Cochrane a start in the hooker's jersey, with Masui Akauola dropping to the bench.

Whitcombe explained: "Cockers deserves a run. He absolutely wants the starting shirt back and over the season he has been great for us off the bench, coming in at hooker or at No 6.

"Masui is still a great player for us and never takes a backward step, but I think he needed reminding that we are concerned about conceding daft penalties and giving away cheap yellow cards under the new referee's instructions since the turn of the year."

The home side played more than half the game a man short after their No 8, Tunisian international Seif Bossaaba, was shown a straight red for a wild punch and, despite the numerical disadvantage, the hosts will have finished the game thinking they should have won.

Had former Bees player Gav Stead been more accurate off the kicking tee or had the YMCA backs managed to find a man with a final pass, instead of making a complete hash of a number of clear chances, then the Bees would not have been celebrating a four-try, bonus-point victory.

The game was also a send off for Schalk Oosthuizen, who was returning to his native South Africa after an extended holiday in the UK in which he turned out 16 times for the Bees and ran in ten tries, picking up that tenth score with the first attack of the game, his trademark pink boots crossing the whitewash with less than two minutes on the clock.

With a Stead penalty bringing the game back to 5-3, it looked likely that the game might degenerate into a forwards' game of pushing and shoving in the mud, but the Bees were able to capitalise on their forward strength with two scores from the pack before half-time.

Skipper Tom Booth picked up the first score after 28 minutes and his fellow back-rower Tom Cummins picked up his fourth five-pointer of the season as the 40th minute ticked past after YMCA were reduced to 14.

Gerhard Nortier added a conversion of the Booth try and Bradford & Bingley turned round 17-6 ahead.

Seven minutes into the second half, YMCA were on the scoreboard to pull the scores within six and, with the loss of a player no longer seeming to impede them, they should have added a couple of scores before Cummins put the result beyond doubt with his second try on 76 minutes.

Deep into injury time, YMCA pulled themselves into losing bonus-point range with a converted score.

The win pushes the Bees to within four points of fourth-placed Alnwick and to within nine of second-placed Penrith.

With eight fixtures left, the Bees play all of the bottom four at Wagon Lane and face only one team in the top five.