Macclesfield 9, Bradford & Bingley 8

For the fourth week in a row the Bees had to settle for a consolation bonus point as two late incidents took the game away from them.

The first of those inevitably involved a yellow card for a Bees player.

With ten minutes to play, Macclesfield were camped on the Bees line looking to drive over in the left-hand corner.

At the third time of asking, the Bees repelled the home side but, just as the danger appeared to have cleared, the touch judge on the near side of the pitch intervened and instructed the referee that he should send Bees no 10 Tom Rhodes to the sin bin.

The touch judge had seen something from fully 60 metres away in the gloom which no-one else seemed to have noticed and a forlorn-looking Rhodes trooped off to serve his ten minutes in the cooler.

As Rhodes was off the pitch, the Bees managed to battle back into the Maccles-field half and, with around five minutes to play, the visitors' pressure was rewarded with a penalty around 40 metres out.

As debutant full back Brendan Nolan stepped up to take the kick, the touch judge marched onto the field to instruct the referee to reverse his award as Ian Judson had wrestled a Macclesfield player off the field when play had stopped.

There was a bright spot for the Bees in the freezing grey afternoon as the Wagon Lane men scored a sparkling try after 15 minutes.

Nolan snatched a Macclesfileld kick out of the air and set off on the counter from deep in his own half.

The ball was shipped through six or seven Bees hands to the other debutant on the day, Cameron O'Connor, who ploughed over for a fine score.

Two penalties from Ross Whinney gave the home side a 6-5 advantage at the interval. Whinney improved the Macclesfield advantage with another three-pointer in the second half, with Tom Rhodes slotting a drop goal in reply.