SSE North One East: Driffield 24, Bradford & Bingley 13

BRADFORD & Bingley's inability to take points on their road trips continued as Driffield denied their visitors a losing bonus point with a try from close range at the death of this closely-fought encounter.

Playing into a near gale-force freezing wind in the second half, the Bees rarely escaped from their own half and the one-point advantage that Stuart Dixon's men held never looked like enough of a cushion.

The visitors were first on the board with a Richard Scull penalty after four minutes but Driffield were quick to respond, second-rower Olly Cooper crashing over.

Five minutes later, Scull restored the visitors' advantage with his second penalty but the strong wind at their backs did not seem to be helping the Bees, and having to keep the ball at close quarters resulted in a number of handling errors.

It didn't matter that the turned-over ball resulted in a Driffield scrum as the Bees pack were wreaking havoc with the Driffield setpiece. However, as the referee allowed the home scrum half to feed the ball directly into the second row, the home side still managed to win a few scrummages.

As time ticked on past the half-hour, Bradford & Bingley were still looking to stretch their 6-5 advantage and were starting to throw the ball about looking for a hole in the home defence.

One passage of play down the right touchline saw the ball land with Ryan Wederell, with a couple of backs outside him calling for the pass. Wederell looped a pass out, only to see Driffield winger Alisdair McClarron anticipate and scamper away to score to the left of the posts some 70 metres away.

With former Otley man Rob Kitching adding the conversion, Driffield now had a six-point advantage with six minutes left in the half.

The Bees were soon camped in the home 22 but could not seem to make that final breakthrough. As the clock reached the 40th minute, Tom Cokell was able to squeeze over, leaving Scull with a routine conversion.

Driffield took the upper hand in terms of territory and possession in the second half but equally the Bees defended well and seemed to be able to lift the seige by letting Cokell, Brett Mitchell, Harry Jeffrey or Chris Fisher run at the home defence.

The Bees made any number of half-breaks but simply could not find a supporting player.

Solid as their defence was, it looked unlikely that they would be able to hold out for the full 40 minutes.

On the hour, the breakthrough finally came as winger Sam Furbank crossed for his sixth try of the season.

As the game wore on, it looked like 17-13 would be the final score until Driffield turned over the Bees and then won a line-out deep in visiting territory.

The leap of celebration from Driffield players confirmed their score with the final play of the game.