Bradford & Bingley 23 Stourbridge 46

Bradford & Bingley, who have now lost their opening four league games, handed Stourbridge their latest victory.

"With the exception of that nice cross-kick in the first half, we gifted them all their tries," said Bees head coach Geoff Wappett.

"We conceded two interception tries, we lost a ball at the back of a scrum for another try, made a mess of a kick for the last try and we simply didn't tackle for their first try.

"You cannot expect to win a match if you give that number of points away.

"When you come up into a new league, it is difficult anyway because you are facing more pace and more physique, but by shooting ourselves in the foot we are making it doubly difficult."

Wappett added: "We are also losing our concentration and not getting our alignment right in defence.

"Their first try came about because we missed three one-on-one tackles. We have to grow up and our play has to mature. We have now played four and lost four and the situation is serious - it really is serious.

"Last time against Halifax we took a step forward but this time we have taken two steps back."

Apart from the lapses of concentration, Wappett must also be concerned about the failure of his team to secure their own line-out ball.

He said: "We have to fine tune that, practice it so it is more effective because from time to time our timing is not right.

"However, we only have two options in the line-out. I would like us to have three, as we had at the start of last season, as it gives us more choice and makes it more difficult for the opposition to guess what we are going to do."

The Bees may be facing the top two in the next fortnight - Esher away and Launceston at home - but it's not all doom and gloom at Wagon Lane.

Recruitment is not at an end, Tom Rhodes had his kicking boots back on, tight-head prop Rob Wilson has shown signs of disrupting the opposition scrum and the Bees played with bags of spirit in the opening 20 minutes of the second half.

In that time they reduced the deficit from 22-10 to 25-23 but things went away from them in the final 20 minutes.

Stourbridge winger, former Gloucestershire county cricketer Alistair Bressington, had a field day.

He scored all their 22 points in the first half, waltzing through the missed tackles in the first minute, taking flanker Thomas Jordan's cross-kick in his stride for his second try in the 26th minute and intercepting Neil Spence's pass ten minutes later for his hat-trick.

He added two conversions and a penalty, the Bees replying through a Spence try and a Rhodes conversion and penalty.

Bressington added another penalty in the 48th minute when the hosts were penalised for crossing when catching a kick-off but the Bees dominated the third quarter, adding two Rhodes penalties and the conversion of Ben Greaves' try.

However, the final quarter belonged to Stourbridge, who managed a try by scrum half Thomas Richardson, another interception try by Bressington, this time from a Phil Greaves pass, and a Simon Price try after capitalising on a Joe Simpson fumble. Bressington converted them to end with 36 points.