Bradford & Bingley 5, Westoe 22

After two excellent SSE National League Three North home wins, Bradford & Bingley, who gave a starting debut to former Bulls player Rikki Sheriffe, were unable to continue their good form into a third home game and were well beaten in the end by their visitors from the north east.

Westoe will probably feel they should have come away with a bonus point for a fourth try as they had two claims for scores denied by the referee, who was unsighted as a pile of bodies rolled over the Bees line, with the Bees claiming they had a man under the ball at the bottom of the maul.

The visitors also spilled a chance over the try-line after they opened up a gap down the right-hand touchline.

It was a strangely flat performance from the Wagon Lane men, who failed to engineer much in the way of attack in the opening 40 minutes and also lost possession far too easily throughout the game, largely through unforced errors, although the Westoe defence was quick to smother anything that the Bees managed to create.

The opening score came on seven minutes as centre Mark Wilson burst through the home defence after his side had laid seige to the line but could not batter their way through with the forwards.

Matthew Mellish added the extras and then stretched the advantage to ten as he added a penalty.

Westoe continued to hold the upper hand away from the tight exchanges, and the scrum and line-out appeared to be the home side's only way of getting over the whitewash.

Unfortunately, the rare chances the Bees got to shunt the Westoe pack back towards the line came to nought as the referee allowed the visitors to wheel the scrum and negate the hosts' advantage.

There also seemed to be a continuing problem at the base of the Bees pack as scrum half Tom Bills and No 8 Adam Malthouse seemed to get in each other's way more than they got the ball away cleanly.

The Bees were also struggling to control Westoe's No 8 Scott Powell, who was a handful throughout, and it was only fitting that he should be the scorer as the visiting pack rumbled over the line just before half-time.

Bradford & Bingley introduced Adam Wellington off the bench and suddenly there was an improved pace and power in the home attack but for all their improved impetus, the stream of handling errors stopped many moves from amounting to anything.

Wellington's industry was rewarded around the hour mark as he bustled over out wide on the left and, with the score at 15-5, it seemed there was hope that the game might be salvaged in the final 20 minutes.

However, the Bees still could not sustain any momentum, even though the pack was still winning enough ball.

For every yard gained up front, it seemed the Bees would immediately lose what they had won by an unforced error.

Westoe were able to take the game out of reach with a final score from winger Lawson with 12 minutes remaing.