Bradford & Bingley, hoping to build on their excellent October, are at Rossendale in SSE National League Three North on Saturday.

The Bees won four of their five games last month and rugby director Martin Whitcombe picked out Guy Ford and Ryan Wederall for special praise after the 31-8 defeat of Sandal last week.

In his weekly club missive, Whitcombe said: "I was delighted to see how the boys responded after a disappointing performance up at Hartlepool.

"Everyone upped their game and I was particularly pleased with how 'Fordy' led the side.

"In my view he had his best all-round game for the club since I have been here. I have been asking him to lead the side and still play his own game and last weekend he really put it all together.

"I was also particularly pleased with the game played by Ryan on his return from injury. Ryan did everything you want from your tight head and was another leader on the field.

"One incident in particular underlined how well our forwards are playing and how Ryan only added to what has been a solid part of our game was when the boys shunted the Sandal eight backwards with only six men packed down.

"That was just excellent. Ryan had their loose head in all sorts of bother and it was also nice for him to get over the try line.

"Another name I thought I should also single out was Richard Tafa. It was his first run out for us since coming back from Sedgely Park, so perhaps he could have been excused not being fully up to speed with the game-plan, but I thought he did everything very well.

"I don't think he missed a tackle, he was always a handful for the Sandal backline and he did his bit for us when called into action in the rucks and mauls."

Whitcombe added: "We have six league games to play before Christmas and we should have every confidence that we can kick on again in these games and start to catch the Darlington Mowden Parks, Chesters and Rossendales of this world and make it interesting in the second half of the season.

"It starts with this Saturday at Rossendale, I hope some of you can make it across to support the boys."