Depleted Bees can only blame themselves for defeat

The Bees were without a number of usual 2nd team players as this friendly allowed a few to go shopping, do some school work or get in some overtime ahead of xmas. Chris Fisher, Joe Burton, Luke Peacock, JP and Brett Campbell all were no shows. None the less the team should have been up for the challenge and are rightly disappointed that the result went against them.

The game was fractious from the start when Nathan Thornton was targeted in the first scrum and Roger Raper and Tom Coates stood up to sort out the nonsense. James Morton was shown a yellow card after retaliating when tackled and then needlessly driven at the barrier. The fact that he slotted the offender and was only shown yellow shows the ref thought he was not out of order. Adam Wellington tripped their scrum half following a quick penalty on our 22 and was given red for a clear technical foul. The game was stayed combative to the end and Matt Cochrane was yellow carded for not putting up with a cheap shot. Given that we played with 14 men for most of the match and were down to 13 for a time should put the result into some better context and shows the level of commitment was top drawer.

The Bees played down the hill to start and scored the first try through Dan Cookson 7:0 crashing over from close in. Old Brods hit back and scored a try out wide when Morton was off for 10 minutes then again after Welli was sent off to put them ahead at half time.

Much effort in the second and both team crossed once more. The Bees try coming from quick play from the forwards out wide and Dan Jeffery found the blind side unguarded. The Bees did threaten to pull the game back but once Cochrane was off then the game pettered out and Brods camped safely on the half way.

By Stevo