Heroic Bees lose narrowly but bag two bonus points in a pre Christmas cracker

The Bees, reduced to fourteen men for all but four minutes of the game, are just edged out 32-27 by Bromsgrove in a cracking game at Finstall Park writes Lou Lupoli.

If the past two encounters between these two sides was anything to go by, this game promised to be a close ding-dong-merrily-on-high battle. However when Mikey Whettle was shown a red card just four minutes into the game, the travelling supporters would have been forgiven if their optimism had suddenly turned hope into a sense of foreboding.

The Bees’ centre was adjudged by referee Nick Marshall to have lifted his opposite number’s legs above the horizontal in the tackle, and issued Whettle with a red card. From the ensuing penalty, James Upton slotted the penalty to make it 3-0.

However, if the home side thought that they were in for an easy day, Bees had other ideas.; galvanised by their predicament, they went on the offensive.

The Bees’ first try on 9 minutes came from a turn over at the lineout on their own 22. Shaping to clear his lines, fly half Mitch McGahan dummied the attempted charge down and accelerated through the space created, recovering his own chip over the last line of defence and was bought down just a couple of meters from the Boars line by the covering defence. The ball squirted out and Sam Davenport was the quickest to react to dot the ball over the line, making the score 3-5.

The home side then squandered three guilt edged opportunities to take the game by the scruff of the neck, through a combination of poor handling, a lack of precision and a dogged scramble defence when they had huge overlaps. The Bees then had a period of possession where they patiently went through the phases, recycling the ball and ultimately creating their own overlap on 20 minutes for Jimmy Oliver to go over in the corner to make it 3-10. The blustery conditions were making it very difficult for McGahan to get his radar set on his kicks to the post.

Five minutes later, the visitors turned the ball over at the breakdown and McGahan kicked the ball speculatively behind the defence towards the corner. Bromsgrove’s winger, Ollie Bache, was looking for the ball to bounce into the in-goal area, but it seemed to be moving in slow motion. Whilst he was watching the ball, he seemed to be totally unaware that he was being closed down by Bees’ winger Aaron Wilson. When the ball finally crossed the whitewash, Wilson beat Bache to apply downward pressure and – quite remarkably - it was 3-15 to the Bees, despite the extra again being missed.

This seemed spark the home side into action. Luckily awarded a lineout on their 10 metre line when both the ref and the touch judge missed that a Bees clearance kick went into touch off Bromsgrove hands, the home pack expertly moved down the pitch into the Bees 22. Playing an advantage for offside, the Boars 10, Upton, executed a cross-field kick expertly for it to be gathered and scored by winger, Ollie Bache, on 31 minutes.

There followed a period of attrition for the Bees defence, with Bromsgrove putting them under huge pressure as they pressed around the fringes of the breakdown, seeking to create the space for their extra man to take advantage of. With only a minute or so left in the half, it seemed that Bees had soaked up all that the home side could throw at them, when an attack down the wing was bundled into touch by Matt Spink.

However, despite gathering the ball from the resulting lineout, the ref spotted a Bees hand knock on and awarded the scrum to the home side. With the ensuing scrum under pressure from the Bees eight, Bromsgrove’s scrum half, Adam Whiteman managed to extricate the ball and forced himself over the line to score his side’s second try. With Upton adding the extras, the half time whistle was blown with the scores level at 15-15.

The second half started with Bromsgrove the more aggressive and enterprising and within six minutes they had scored two converted tries, firstly from Gino Belmonte off the back of a 5m line and then when a flowing move from the Bromsgrove back’s unlocked the Bees defence ,allowing inside centre Ed Spalding to score.

If the Bromsgrove supporters felt that had put the contest to bed at 29-15, then they were mistaken. The Boars were under constant pressure in their own 22, failing to cope with the Bees pack and the outstanding tactical kicking from McGahan. However, the men from Finstall Park managed to soak up all that was a thrown at them until the 62nd minute when, under pressure in the scrum, it wheeled through 90 degrees and the re-set scrum was awarded back to Bees.

The eventual score from Bees’ captain, Chris Goddard, started with a driving scrum, a pick up from the irrepressible Matt Tibbatts and series of controlled pick and drives. The extras were added by McGahan to make the score 29-22. Suddenly it was game on.

The Bees continued to pressure the home side from the kick off and some good work down the left released winger, Wilson. A late tackle on him by Bromsgrove replacement, Liam Marshall - after Wilson had kicked ahead - saw the Bromsgrove man yellow carded with less than 10 minutes on the clock.

The men in black continued to control the ball well, moving the point of attack right and left. Eventually the space the space they were trying to create appeared and it was attacked with pace and accuracy with two sharp long passes that released right winger, Davenport, to attack his opposite number at pace. He broke the tackle and sprinted to the corner to score. Kicking into a difficult swirling breeze, McGahan missed the conversion, but the deficit was now just 29-27 with minutes to play.

Shortly after the restart, the ref deemed that a Bromsgrove try attempt had been held up but then the Bees conceded a penalty, having been adjudged to be holding onto the ball. Upton, who had better managed the swirling wind all day, slotted the 3 points making it 27-32 and from the kick off Bromsgrove were able to run the clock down to take the victory.

Team

Birmingham & Solihull – Brian Sibiya, Aaron Wilson (T), Jimmy Oliver (T), Mikey Whettle (RC), Sam Davenport (2T), Mitchell McGahan (1C), Chris Fensome, Matt Tibbatts, Ashley Scriven, Darren Forder, Matt Spink, Chris Goddard © (T), Liam Dunne, Zane Raimondi, Dan Toth. Replacements – Pete Koziot, Billy Castle and Martin Hooker.