Bees struggle in the seaside sunshine

The Bees travelled to Bridlington for the second fixture of the new season, following an encouraging performance in the season opener, with a belief that they might be able to kick start their campaign with further improvements to the team’s showing in week two.
However, a game in which the home side ran in ten tries, does not really allow much scope for seeing many positives, perhaps other than the glorious weather that prevailed throughout.

Undoubtedly there were individuals, such as back row man Jim Nicholas collecting his second man of the match award of the young season to the fore, but overall, the result never really seemed in doubt as the home side were quicker in deed and thought with ball in hand and far more robust in defence whenever a Bees attack threatened. It took Bridlington 6 minutes to open their account as the home backline outnumbered the Bees with a move which put their centre through the middle to score.

It took another 9 minutes for the home lead to be improved by another converted try but briefly there seemed to be some hope for the visitors as centre Jack Malthouse collected the ball out on the right and backed himself to outpace the covering defenders with a short kick through to the in goal area, where he flopped on the loose ball for the five points.

At 14 points to 5 with 18 minutes played, perhaps the Bees were now settling into their game and another score might just tip the game towards the visitors. Any thoughts of a recovery were quickly disabused as the home side replied to Malthouse’s score within three minutes with a score out wide on the right hand touchline. Bridlington collected two further tries to make the half time score 35 points to 5.
Things could not have got off to a worse start for the Bees in the second half as Malthouse was given a yellow card for a clumsy shoulder charge in the 42 second minute, so it was no surprise that the home side were over the whitewash to extend their lead to 47 5 and increase the speed of their scoring to a point a minute. Then, within two minutes, the Bees were gifted a numerical advantage as two Bridlington players were shown yellow in separate incidents. With Malthouse returning to the fray, The Bees were now playing with 15 men against 13. Despite the superior numbers, the Bees still seemed to be lacking some attacking coherence but finally, skipper Harry Jeffrey was able to plunge over from short range. With Ben Hockenhull adding the extras, it was 47-12 with around 20 minutes to play.

The Bees managed to hold out in defence as Bridlington were restored to their full compliment but on 66 minutes the Bees defence was completely wrong footed by the bounce of the ball which bobbled up nicely for a Bridlington player as the Bees could do nothing to stop the score board ticking past 50. With seven minutes to play there was a brief moment to celebrate for the visitors as Malthouse again backed his own pace to go round the Bridlington defence wide on the left for a converted score. However, the home side were not about to take their foot off the pedal and ran in two further scores in the final four minutes, looking good value for their win, with the Bees looking at the drawing board for a new plan for next week’s first home fixture.