Tonight's Meeting

By Elliott Josypenko
January 19 2005

The Bees amateur arm, Solihull, have been paired with North Midlands rivals Worcester Wanderers in the last eight of the Powergen Junior Vase.

Pertemps Bees director of rugby, Phil Maynard, has revealed that the Solihull club still feel resentment towards Leicester Tigers' Colin Noon after the prop had his appeal against a six-month ban rejected.

Noon had originally been suspended by the Rugby Football Union for stamping on the head of Bees front-row forward Matt Long, when he was on loan to Rotherham Titans earlier this season.

The incident, described by Maynard as 'the worst inflicted injury' he had seen on a rugby field, took place when the sides met in a National One match on October 30. Long needed 35 stitches in a head wound and is scarred for life.

A disciplinary committee banned the 29-year-old until May 5 but the former Bridgend and Worcester tighthead opted for an appeal hearing which sat in Coventry on Monday night.

The panel, which comprised Dr Matthew Lohn (chairman), Richard Moon and Christopher Quinlan, decided to uphold the sentence which will run from yesterday.

Which is right, according to Maynard, who said: "There is still resentment at the club about it. Not as much because of what he did but because he did not show remorse from the start.

"Actions like that cannot be condoned, if anything I think it should have been a season-long suspension.

"It disfigured Matt for life. He is going to carry those scars around with him forever, that is more important than how many games he missed."

Maynard added that Noon had violated values which govern the safety of the sport, adding: "It is an unwritten code that you leave the head and face alone.

"It is a very aggressive and in certain cases violent sport but you never do anything to someone's face," he said.

Maynard will tonight be present at a meeting of club members to discuss plans to turn Bees into a full-time outfit.

Wealthy backers are thought to be waiting in the wings for members' consent to hand overall control to a single or consortium of investors who will then finance a run at the Premiership.

Central to discussions will be the club's future at Shar-mans Cross Road and plans to move to another site within Solihull.

The Midlands Four West South rivals have already met once in the league this season, with Solihull winning 18-6 at Sixways, and they will meet again on February

12. The game is likely to be played at Sharmans Cross Road because Bees do not have a scheduled game that weekend.

Solihull reached the quarter-finals after beating Gosforth 41-12 while Worcester Wanderers defeated Avonmouth OB, of Bristol, 13-8 at Sixways. The winners will meet one match from a dream Twickenham final.