Morley's power ultimately too much for the Bees

There was drama afoot in the Bees camp immediately after this North One East fixture, as a misunderstanding of the rules around uncontested scrums had many believing that the visitors would have to forfeit the victory and the win would be awarded to the home side on a technicality involving Regulation 13 of the RFU Rules in England.

However, after consulting all the right documents on the England Rugby website, it became clear that Morley had got everything spot on and deservedly won the game and now sit in joint top position having claimed this bonus point victory. The visitors ran in seven tries, six in the final half hour, against a tiring Bees defence.

From the outset Morley appeared to have an advantage in size and weight over their hosts and were on the front foot right from the kick off. However, whatever the visitors threw at the home defence, it seemed the tenacious Bees' tackling and pursuit of the ball was equal to it. Morley appeared to have made the break in the seventh minute as they swept the ball out wide to the left wing, but as the line beckoned, Cameron Bainbridge appeared to slam the door shut and bundle the final attacker into touch. That piece of brave defence set a theme for the home side as what can only be described as kitchen sink tackling kept the visitors at bay.

Four minutes after that initial Bainbridge save, Morley were rewarded with a score via the same route as the Bees ran out of defenders out wide but despite piling on the pressure that was to be the only score of the half. The visitors were guilty of butchering two or three easy opportunities but home supporters in the crowd were absolutely delighted to see the young and mostly inexperienced home squad throw themselves into every tackle. Morley lost a front rower to a nasty looking leg injury and then on about 35 minutes lost his replacement to another injury. With no other front row players available the game went to uncontested scrums.

After turning round at seven nil to the visitors it appeared the second half was to be much like the first as the Bees scrambled heroically to defend their line and Morley continued to fail to capitalise on their opportunities. With about ten minutes played the visitors realised their best way to get over the line was to forget any notion of the fancy stuff and set up the forwards to heave over the whitewash. With the damn broken the Bees then leaked a further five tries before replacement prop Alex Leadbetter, on his first team debut, signed off the afternoon in style as he galloped home for the consolation score which was converted by Bees man of the match, Dom Walker.