Passion of the Bees

By Elliott Josypenko
February 4 2005

The story has been put about that Pertemps Bees' players are on £500-plus a man bonuses to beat Coventry at the Butts Stadium tomorrow.

This has come as news to the Bees.

"If we had that sort of money," says their director of rugby, Phil Maynard, "we'd be spending it on buying more bulbs for our training lights. Actually, we've got blokes who would pay us to play in this one."

Coventry, in perhaps the finest form since the game went professional, are overwhelming favourites to win. With five victories on the trot (on the gallop, more like) and a try-scoring knack that astounds, they are menacingly set to avenge their shock Powergen Cup defeat of last November.

"We were devastated by that result, " Ian Carvell, Coventry's chief executive, confesses. "We are very keen to get revenge and there can't be a better time than now."

"Coventry are obviously a very good side," Maynard acknowledges. "They have recruited heavily and if you roll the dice often enough, you'll come up with a doublesix in the end. Their pack are big and formidable, the big Tongan wing [Pila Fifita] is making a difference, John Cannon is a class centre and John Higgins is a good playmaker at fly-half who kicks very well for the best field positions. It would appear that we haven't got a chance."

It is not entirely a coincidence that Coventry's massive surge in form started with Fifita's arrival from New Zealand. He's a problem, Coventry's big gun. So how do the Bees go about stopping him? Who draws the short straw and has to mark him?

"Nick Baxter," said Maynard. "Fifita won't have run into (he used the term figuratively) anyone like Backo before." That will not impress those who have regarded Baxter as, primarily, a conjurer of tries from the skies, a piratical opportunist rather than a rock-like preventer of tries by the other side. To which Maynard replies: "He is now playing the best rugby of his life.

"His defence is much more assured than it was. He has become a much more rounded player." Just the same, Baxter has a massive job on his plate this week and so have all his team-mates.

There was a freakish element to that Cup victory and Bees know that they will not be able to come from so far back if they are to win again. "We've got to get our technical things right," Maynard said. "And we've got to stay calm."

Staying calm, when you have a task like this to confront, when the opposition will be roaring at you, can be difficult. And too calm is a very bad idea, which Maynard recognises when he says that his side still remember the 50-point hammering they took at Coundon Road two years ago. It wasn't the calm side who won that day.

"We still smart from that defeat," Maynard admits. "Which is why the bar has been raised every time we've played Coventry since. This fixture holds a special place on our calendar. I know we've got a big game in us - somewhere."

Bees are without their captain, Ed Orgee, for this one but Alex Davidson is now fit again, he'll start this week and it will be interesting to see where he stands on the calmness issue.

At half-time at Otley last week, during Maynard's informal chat with the referee, the official quietly advised him that Bees' No 4 (Davidson) was being somewhat destructive. "Living on the edge of disaster," were his words. And Maynard's response was: "you've just earned him a pay rise, ref."

A fairly physical battle seems to be on the cards this week. With rampagers like Dan Farini and Henry Rheeders available in the forwards, this prospect does not dismay Coventry.

They feel equipped to play any sort of game -- against anyone, but they have singled out this one. "We've had a good run," says Carvell, "but we see this as our most difficult match, including Penzance. We haven't beaten the Bees for a long time and while we're playing well now, we know that they are going to ask questions. We know that they'll have something up their sleeves."

The rush on ticket sales suggests that a large crowd will want to watch this one. Local derbies still have their place in the fabric of the game and there aren't many keener ones than this in the First Division. Or in any division, come to think of it.