temporary setback?

motm?
By Wyldeman
January 20 2004

A warm and sunny morning welcomed us on Saturday morning as we prepared for our journey the famous haven of Ocean colour Scene and Jasper Carrot, the world famous centre of the Range Rover… Solihull.

With a spring in our step and the thoughts of victory in our hearts, making up for the 11-45 defeat last time was a viable thought after the narrow victory that the Bee’s had created over Exeter (12-6).

After the respectful minutes silence for the sadly departed James Radburn Bristol kicked off, and that’s the point the spring in my step sprung and all thoughts of victory have disappeared over the horizon when the Bee’s took an early dominating lead almost straight from the kick.

The play was free flowing but Bristol was put under pressure almost immediately when a returned kick pushed us almost straight back to our touch line, luckily it was cleared away and we put some pressure on to the Bee’s, Bristol were the first on the scoreboard with a penalty after 5mins that Danny slotted between the posts with no problem, with the Bee’s slotting one over the posts in return no less than 5mins later.

The play seemed to be slow and bogged down on the pitch until Matt Styles made a few probing runs, then at 13mins the Bee’s were judged offside and Danny easily got the second penalty through and we took the lead again at 6-3, we gloried in the lead for all of 3mins, I barely had enough time to put my pint down when a run from Luke Nabaro was tapped on, Brett Davey attempted so kick it over the line when it was stopped, grabbed up by Nabaro and handed off to Mike Davies who ran it over the line to retake the lead at 8-6.

Bristol’s defence was almost non-existent at some points as Nabaro made another break through a gap in the pack and was on a guaranteed try scoring with only the ref calling a forward pass stopping the score from rocketing away from us.

More Bee’s domination continued with some great play from A Clark clearing the lines and stopping a scrum on the 5 yard, but all in vain with a short Woodrow kick placed the ball behind Marko with Nabaro diving on it to take the scores to 13-9, just before the end of the half (38mins) the Bee’s were finally penalised for holding on and Danny slotted another terrific penalty bringing the half time scores to a realistic 13-12, still easy winnable as long as the effort and determination we have seen in the past is brought to bear.

The second half started as the last half had finished, a poor performance from the lads hailed an almost immediate set piece try from the Bee’s with Woof allowed to run to the line with Woodrow converting bringing the score to 20-12, then came the rally, it was almost expected with the Shoguns seeming to shine brighter in the second half of most of the games in recent weeks but it was a short lived burst of skill with the highlight being Brett driving the ball over the line, unfortunately the ref failed to see it and it was disallowed however the ref called on the advantage and Danny got another penalty bringing the score to 20-15 (making it 5 from 5 J) and then Brett Davey (hero or over-rated depending who you are talking too) was yellow carded for persistent killing of the ball (again depends who you are talking to, some say throwing punches and others say going over the top in the ruck, but I’m writing this not you).

The Bees’s took swift advantage of the extra man with Fakatou giving them the bonus point and again with Woodrow converting bringing the score to 27-15, now going into the last quarter time was of the essence but comebacks like this are not outside of our skill I feel.

Paul Hodgson justified the reason for subbing him on with a fresh burst of energy on the pitch the Shoguns quickly rallied around, and with a fast pass, a good 20-25 yard run from Owens gave us our first try of the day, once again Dannys boot (I’m not biased at all) gave us a chance to win bringing the score to 27-22 (a bonus point at least we were all thinking) and then it started going wrong again; Styles penalised for knocking on gave Woodrow’s boot another chance to claim another 3 points taking the Bee’s a 30-22 lead as we fall in to the last dyeing minutes.

The Shoguns put their heads down and did their best to get that point, praying that they would give us that final penalty, then Woof was given the ball and despite a crossing offence (even admitted by their fans) which was unseen by the ref he was able to run the ball through with Woodrow supplying the final points of the game to make it 37-22 at the whistle.

A deserved win from the Bee’s and mistakes a plenty from the Shoguns that were taken advantage of in the most professional of ways, not the best memories to take away from the first trip to Sharmans Cross.