Cinderford feel the pain of the Bees’ late sting

CINDERFORD 10 BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL 36

CINDERFORD more than matched the likely champions of National Two for an hour, but Birmingham and Soli- hull’s professionalism was the deciding factor in the end.

Neither team was giving an inch in a bruising and physical encounter at Dockham Road which left the Foresters with a number of walking wounded.

The two sides were locked at 10-10 until the former Pertemps Bees ran in three quick tries in 10 second-half minutes to take the game away from Cinderford.

Rod Petty scored the opening try for Birmingham and Solihull from a typical counter-attack after Cinderford’s Freddie Burns lost possession in the opposition’s 22 and the Bees swarmed forward to score.

Mark Woodrow converted after 22 minutes but Cinderford captain Paul Knight scored against his old club three minutes later when he crashed through the tackles after James Copsey’s inside pass.

After missing an ambitious 30 metre drop goal after five minutes, Burns found his range from almost exactly the same place after 33 minutes to lead 10-7.

But Woodrow levelled the scores two minutes before half-time when he landed a penalty for offside from in front of the posts on the 22.

In the second period Cinderford kept up their committed and spirited defence with some bone-crunching tackling but their resistance was finally breached on the hour mark and the floodgates swung ajar.

Their cause was not helped by a number of injuries which disrupted their organisation, including the exit of fly-half Burns.

The Bees’ superior fitness, conditioning and size then turned the game in the last quarter when Woodrow cantered over from a ruck but missed the conversion from the touchline.

With Birmingham’s back row punching holes in Cinderford’s defence, flanker Rob Connolly picked up from another ruck to go over to score six minutes later and Woodrow converted.

Just four more minutes later, Birmingham got their bonus point after taking advantage of another Cinderford mistake, this time in the line-out, with Woodrow pouncing to feed Rosario Halavatou to score.

With the damage done, Bees substitute Adam Clayton smashed through the tired tackles for their fifth try in injury-time and Woodrow added two more.

CINDERFORD: D Trigg, J Copsey, D Knight, D Scourfield, J Carter, F Burns, P Knight, G Evans, M Brown, A Nicholls, R Fidler, D Wright, A Deacon, N Matthews, P Kennedy. Replacements: G Baldwin, A Obileye, T Wilson, A Bryan, N Bayliss.

BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL: R Spee, S Hunt, S Young, R Petty, M Culpin, M Woodrow, S Brown, R Halavatou, R Connolly, C Brightwell, S Pammenter, A Davidson, C Voisey, B Phillips, R Davies. Replacements: A Lawrence, J Preece, Adam C, Jimmy Aston, Ryan Tomlinson

Article courtesy of www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk