Bees turned up to a cold and blustery Sharmans Cross Road to find out that their already injury depleted squad would be missing some more players. Missing Nick Baxter, Jim Jenner, Nathan Carter, Matt Long, Rob Hurrell, it was definitely not good news when Martin O’Keefe and Shaun Woof phoned in to say that they were stuck in hours of traffic following an accident on the M6.
This meant that Emyr Lewis was handed a starting role for the Bees, and Mark Foster also played in outside centre.
Because of the lack of props, Bees were struggling to find a front row replacement. With this being obligatory nowadays, Bees had no choice but to include 41 year old, former England, Worcester, Moseley and Bees prop Mark “Sumo” Linnett on the bench.
But, even with all these newcomers to the team you would expect Bees, unbeaten at home this year, to roll over a Nottingham side which had only won one game previously. Or would you?
In the first half Bees were poor. They had pretty much all of the possession but just couldn’t convert anything. It looked as if they were trying not to score! On numerous occasions Bees fell at the final hurdle by dropping the ball and crossing at the try line. Nottingham in contrast had very little possession, but when they got the ball, they played to their strengths. Kick to the corner, catch and drive and roll it over the line. Everyone knew how they would play but still the Bees couldn’t do anything about it.
At half time Bees were 12-3 down with one solitary penalty to show for their possession, but Nottingham already scoring two tries.

The second half was much of the same with Bees keeping the ball, but the Nottingham defence keeping them out. Within one minute Bees had a chance in the corner but the touchjudge correctly ruled Aaron Takarangi to have knocked the ball on at the line.
The Bees struggled particularly in the backs. The Bees backs seemed to run into each other a lot and gave away numerous penalties for crossing. Some of the team such as Aaron Takarangi were particularly poor and ineffective. One shining light though was Dave Knight who played very very well, and was my man of the match.
With about 20 minutes left Bees managed to score through Gavin Pfister in the corner, leaving Bees just 7 points behind ensuring a very harem-scarem final few minutes. All credit to Nottingham who defended resolutely and especially to Neil Stenhouse who managed to clear the ball very well at the end.

Bees spent the final few minutes encamped in the Nottingham 22, but just couldn’t get over the line. In the very last play of the match Matt Miles had to beat a man, and get over the line to give Bees a drawing chance. He managed the first easily, but the getting over the line was too hard and he dropped it as well. This was incredibly frustrating and a shame because Matt Miles had played quite well and never gave up.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon