WESTCOMBE PARK 11 BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL BEES 29

The Bees had a late sting in their tail away at Westcombe Park to secure a crucial bonus point victory to the relief of assistant head coach Eugene Martin. Coming off a fantastic performance last weekend against Leeds in the EDF Trophy, the Bees were made to work hard and only a try from Mitch Culpin with the last play of the game secured maximum points. Martin played down the

suggestion his side were suffering from complacency following their sensational showing at the Tykes.

He said: “It wasn’t the greatest performance from us but we’ve got the job done.

“I think you must take your hat off to Westcombe Park because they pushed us very hard.

“You must give them the credit they deserve rather than thinking it was a hangover from the Leeds game on our part.

“We were never going to underestimate them because we are fully aware of what they are capable of.

“They pressed and at times stopped us playing our wide game.”

The afternoon got off to the worst possible start for the visitors following the late withdrawal of influential outside-half Mark Woodrow.

His absence saw Rod Petty switch to fly-half and Sam Brown drafted in at scrum-half with Martin admitting it left them a little disjointed. He added: “The loss of Mark so close to kick-off didn’t help us.

“Sam came in and hadn’t been involved at all this week in the set moves for the game so it was always going to take us a while to adjust.”

The hosts took full advantage of the Bees reshuffle and were soon ahead through a James Whittingham penalty.

As so often this season, going behind seemed to lift the visitors and they were in front after 20 minutes thanks to an unconverted Alex Davidson who soon went from hero to villain, however, as he was sin-binned for being offside at a ruck.

From the resulting penalty, Whittingham slotted over to put the hosts ahead.

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