What could have been either a feisty and entertaining local derby or a bold statement of intent by potential champions, disintegrated into neither as Stourbridge and Bees were happy to see the back of each other.

Stour maintained their leadership of National Two North with a four-try victory and Bees escaped the drubbing their hosts had handed out to Dudley Kingswinford the week before, but in truth neither team looked great.

Having established a dominant 25-3 interval lead, the scene seemed set for Neil Mitchell’s men to explore the extremities of their tactical repertoire and for hardworking but limited Bees to run out of fingers for their defensive dam.

That it didn’t materialise was down to a combination of factors, not least Stourbridge’s superiority which developed into a complex and in turn beguiled them into thinking they could surge away without doing the dirty work.

After a decent first-half, three-try salvo the result was effectively decided and so Stour assumed the bonus point and a rout would follow merely because they wished it so. We all know what ‘assume’ did. And so it did.

Their forwards stopped carrying, they moved the ball wide where the visitors’defence remained intact and eventually momentum was lost and, indeed, handed to the Portway side, who spent the final half-hour blundering around trying to add to Rob Connolly’s mauled consolation score.

And the spectacle wasn’t helped by the fact neither side could string lineouts together. Bees had half-a-dozen catch-and-drive opportunities that went begging.

Nor was it improved by an inexperienced, former Rugby League referee, who allowed the scrums to become a mess. In the second half it was possible to count the number that were completed on one digit.

As a result neither side knew where they were without set-pieces to orientate themselves and the product rather worryingly resembled park-rugby. If Stour are to go up they will have to listen to the warnings of their coaching staff.

And if Bees are to attain the top-half finish everyone at the club considers possible, on this showing an improvement in accuracy is an absolute prerequisite.

But there were a few positives for both teams. When Stour played properly during the second quarter, they found scoring relatively easy.
Gary Dipple, a centre doing a convincing impression of a fly-half, at least while the tracks are fast, kicked well, ran at the right times and showed slick distribution. If Ben Barkley and Stefan Shillingford can impose themselves more than they did on Saturday, Stour will cause lots of problems through the centre.

And Bees must be commended for not buckling. It would have been easy to crawl under a rock at more than three scores down but with Matt Long revelling in the new laws they will always have a chance at scrums.

STOURBRIDGE: Farrington; Bressington (Cooksammy 69), Shillingford, Barkley (Tuipulotu 66), Hearn; Dipple, White; Hill (Garner K 66), Page (Garner D 58), George, Dacres, Hurrell, Mukurati, Uzoigwe (Moore 54) Rodley

BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL: Heath; Evans, Oliver (Elvers 51), Leach, Mogaji (Fensome 69); Canning, Petty; Long (Boyce 51), Radburn, Bingham (Koziot 55), Spink, Goddard, Stephens, Stoddard (Forder 51), Connolly