More injury woes for Bees

By IC Birmingham
April 3 2006

The end of the season probably can't come soon enough for Pertemps Bees as their losses in both games and players mount match by match.

This time they went down 58-20 at Rotherham with their now customary serious injury coming as early as the warm-up with prop Rob Hardwick dislocating his shoulder.

Injuries meant that Bees were without full-back Dave Knight, Simon Martin, Duncan White and Cae Trayhern and, to put the tin hat on things, prop Andrew Le Chevalier injured an Achilles in training on Thursday.

It meant wingers Tom Beim and Aaron Takarangi were pressed into service as full-back and centre respectively as Bees started with all the players they could muster - and even that was a man short with only 20 including the bench.

The players are now playing for contracts next year and one high-profile casualty is Tim Walsh, who has not been offered a new deal. The Aussie fly-half has had a season to forget with the boot and is thought to have signed for Newbury.

Tony Yapp, of Exeter, is in the frame as his replacement.

Against Rotherham, Walsh was again off target with his kicking and it was not until scrum-half Ben Harvey came on as a replacement full-back that Bees managed to get the ball between the posts with a second-half penalty but by then they were already 20-10 down.

Two penalties made it 20-10 at the break and after Harvey had made it 20-13 six second-half tries left Bees trailing and a rare sortie into the Rotherham half, which saw Walsh go over and Harvey convert, was little more than a consolation.