1st XV
Matches
Sat 22 Oct 2022  ·  Regional 2 North East
Bradford & Bingley RFC
1st XV
Tries: J MalthouseConversions: B HemsleyYellow Carded: R Raper
7
25
Old Crossleyans
Tries: N Sembi, C Brannan, J Camlin, A ThompsonConversions: J BrownPenalties: J Brown
First Points of the season elude Bees

First Points of the season elude Bees

Nick Patterson25 Oct 2022 - 12:15
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Despite steady improvement, The Bees can't make that breakthrough

ALTHOUGH a loss at home to second-from-bottom Old Crossleyans seems like an opportunity missed, Carl Paterson - head coach of basement boys Bradford & Bingley - is not burying his head in his hands.
Despite losing their opening seven games in Regional Two North East, Paterson can see his team’s continual improvement and feels that their first victory since February 2020 is just around the corner.
He explained: “The way I look at it is compared to last year we are better so we are going in the right direction and the lads are not far off from getting their first win.
“We have that 10-point deduction (from last season), which we can do nothing about, but you can see every week that a win is coming but I just want it to hurry up,
“Our hard work will pay off and we will not go down without a fight and they are a good set of lads - one or two of them are daft but I like daft lads.”
What disappointed Paterson most about their 25-7 defeat was that they forgot about their game-plan for the first 45 minutes.
He revealed: “I am frustrated, really frustrated. We have worked really hard for the past two or three weeks on changing what we do and then we left it in the changing rooms for the first half.
“We have simplified what we were doing from last season but for some reason here we just didn’t start.
“We gave them too much field position, gave away too many penalties and made too many mistakes. We just panicked, playing at a 1,000 miles an hour and made handling errors and you cannot do that.”
This was a game that Paterson and his players had earmarked as a potential win, and he added: “We have looked at five matches this season that we thought that we could get a result out of but we will get there.
“We were still in it with 20 minutes to go but we needed to score in that second half and never did. If we had turned that corner we would have put them under a lot of pressure.”
While the visitors from Halifax scored 12 first-half points while evergreen 44-year-old Bees prop Roger Raper was in the sin bin, Paterson did not feel that that was pivotal.
He said: “In the grand scheme of things Roger’s yellow card was not that bad as we didn’t have a scrum in those 10 minutes but it always hard going down to 14 men.”
As for who impressed him in a home shirt, Paterson said: “James Nicholas went really well in the back row, Ed King went well at No 8 and Ali Macdonald went all right at 12 when he came on.
“Also Luca DeVittoris did well but we just didn’t start for the first 45 minutes.”
When asked if exciting full back Aidan Scully and the Bulls’ most recent signing Dalton Desmond-Walker will feature in the near future, Paterson said: “I hope so.
“Aidan is waiting for a result on his injured ankle and we hope that we can still get Dalton for a couple of games.
“He is good to be around for the lads but we have to our heads down and our backsides up and work really hard anyway.
“Also we have Joe Pearson, who is a good player, coming back at 12 after a couple of weeks out, and skipper Harry Jeffrey back from his mid-season jaunt.”
The Bees won three of the first four penalties awarded by referee Jamie Leahy - a late inclusion after being freed up from fourth official duty in Sunday’s Leicester v Wasps Premiership clash - but could make nothing of them and then Raper had a 10-minute rest in the 11th minute after a high tackle on Crocs flanker Rob Oliver.
Three minutes later a short reverse pass put much-involved lock Navheet Sembi through a gap for the visitors’ first try, and in the 18th minute hooker Cameron Brannan scored a pushover try that was converted by centre Josh Brown.
Three minutes after that, Bradford & Bingley got their only score, with the DeVittoris brothers Luca and Nico involved down the left before play switched right for centre Jack Malthouse to score.
Scrum half Ben Hemsley added the conversion but the scoring for the rest of the half belonged to Crocs, with Brown adding a simple penalty in the 32nd minute, four minutes before replacement James Cooper scored a try following scrum half Chris Vine’s quick tap penalty.
Trailing 20-7 at the interval, the Bees knew that the first score in the second half was crucial, but it went to the visitors soon after the restart with Brown’s kick ahead giving full back Josh Hunt the chance to score an easy try with the Bees’ defence drawn to the clubhouse side of the pitch, away from the danger area.
Macdonald gave the hosts some much-needed heft after he came on and full back Ben Bottomley knocked on close to the Crocs line before Brown (neck) and Hemsley (knee) both came off injured.

Match details

Match date

Sat 22 Oct 2022

Kickoff

15:00

Competition

Regional 2 North East

League position

11
Old Crossleyans
12
Bradford & Bingley
Team overview
Further reading

Team Sponsors

Shirt and Board Sponsors - Mortgage Advice Bureau
Ground Sponsor - Shama Bingley
Club Board Manufacturers - Applelec
Shorts Sponsor - Hemsley Goldthorpe Financial Services
Board Sponsor - Foundry Hill Bar & Lounge
Stand Sponsor - Lucid Events
Mound Sponsor - Duncan Barr Associates Limited
Entrance Board Sponsor - Emerald Group Publishing
Official Gym - Nuffield Health
Official Team Travel Supplier - J & B Travel
Official Charity - Bradford & Airedale Cancer Sup