Bradford & Bingley 29, Percy Park 19

A 74th-minute drop goal from Tom Bills stretched Bradford & Bingley's advantage to ten points and wrapped up the win which guaranteed the Wagon Lane side’s safety in SSE National League Three North.

This was the Bees' fifth home win on the bounce and was the only time this season that the club has managed to beat the same opponent home and away.

In fact, that win in December up in North Shields was the Bees' only victory on the road this term.

Coming into the game, there were all sorts of mathematical possibilities involving the Bees and the side immediately below them, Birkenhead Park, as to how the final relegation position might pan out.

However, the simplest one was that a win at Wagon Lane for the home side would see them safe, no matter what Birkenhead managed to do.

Both sides began brightly enough and Richard Scull edged his side into an early lead as Percy Park conceded a penalty 30 metres out from their own line.

Percy Park responded quickly as the referee was not happy with the Bees at the breakdown and two scores from Ashley Smith for the visitors saw them 6-3 in front after 15 minutes.

The hosts tried to bring their wingmen into the game with some well-weighted crossfield kicks, and were perhaps unlucky that the bounce of the ball took the ball away from Adam Wellington on the left wing and then James Morton on the right.

Scull tacked on another penalty to restore parity at 6-6 but Bradford & Bingley were missing too many tackles up the middle of the park, and the Percy Park centres, Alistair Blair and James Bird, were making headroom running straight through the home cover.

On 20 minutes, Percy Park engineered a gaping hole in the centre of the Bees defence, with No 8 Brett Sylph on hand to charge to the line unopposed.

Smith landed the simple conversion and the better side had a 13-6 advantage.

Scull reduced that on the half-hour with his third penalty, and gradually the Bees were starting to wrest control of the game back from their visitors.

The Bees broke out up the left-hand side of the field and Tommy Kanouros slipped a pass away to Guy Ford, who was charging up on his outside.

Ford was still a good 20 metres from the line with two defenders to beat, but, as the Wagon Lane faithful have seen many times this season, when Ford gets a sniff of the whitewash he is usually unstoppable.

He barged over the line and then sought out Percy Park full back Michael Stephenson for another collision behind the posts, before finally dotting down, a fine conversion from Scull seeing the sides turning round at 16-13.

Percy Park soon redressed that imbalance with a Smith penalty on 47 minutes, but two minutes later as the Bees worked the ball left to right in midfield, Tom Bills chipped over the defence, gathered his own kick and slipped away a pass to Kanouros who zipped away from the cover to score under the posts.

With Scull slotting the extras, the Bees were seven clear with half an hour to play. With the increasing rain and the dropping temperature, it became difficult for either side to retain the ball and as the game got scrappier it was left for Smith and Scull to exchange penalties to bring the score to 26-19 as the clocked ticked past 70 minutes.

With their next significant possession, the Bees drove close to the Percy Park posts. The ball was whipped back to Bills, who just got the drop goal away as the defence charged.

The Bees are safe for this season but will be working hard to address some of their shortcomings over the summer.