Eventful day for the Norburys as Sandal add to Paul’s drop fears

With their first attack, Sandal made ground up the right wing and stretched the home defence, allowing loose-head prop Luke Norbury to plough over.

It was an almost identical scenario in the third minute of the second half as tight-head prop Rob Norbury rumbled over from close range.

In between, the pair were binned after a maul broke up after 30 minutes.

Sandal brought on a prop from their bench, replacing a back-row player, but at the next set-piece with only one prop on the field, the referee ordered uncontested scrums.

The Bees, however, claimed without success that guidelines state that the offending side should be able to send another player to the sin bin to allow contested scrums or should lose another player to compensate for them having guaranteed possession at the put in.

Richard Scull kicked a penalty for the Bees before the break but failed to capitalise on the elements after the interval.

The defeat leaves Henry Paul’s side perched precariously one place off the bottom of the table and, with seven games to go, the odds on the Wagon Lane side remaining in this division are lengthening.

Morley produced back-to-back wins with a comfortable 36-5 success at home to bottom club Penrith.

Hot on the heels of their impressive 16-7 success at high-flying Sale, the visit from Penrith was the perfect opportunity to maintain the momentum and the home supporters were not disappointed. The Maroons made the perfect start with a try after eight minutes from inside-centre Laurence Frantzis but, in blustery conditions, the conversion was missed.

Penrith showed their usual brave, battling spirit but they fell further behind four minutes later to a second unconverted score by scrum-half Sean Dadswell. An untidy second quarter continued and it was not until a minute before the break that Morley added further points, again through Dadswell’s try which Mark Chester converted to make it 17-0.

Penrith hit back with a try in the third quarter but the hosts stepped up a gear in the final 20 minutes with captain Chester scoring and converting. With two minutes remaining, replacement back-row Tom Moody added the bonus-point try before full-back Jack Moon touched down once more and replacement stand-off Mark Sales converted.

Beverley went down to a 22-14 home defeat against Firwood Waterloo, who adapted far better to the difficult playing conditions.

After 10 minutes, Beverley led 14-0 through tries by James Holland and Richard Bussey both converted by fly-half Phil Duboulay.

Firwood Waterloo got more into the game and James O’Brien touched down to reduce Beverley’s interval lead to 14-5.

In the second half against the strong wind, Beverley were further hampered by the loss of Duboulay with concussion and they struggled to hang on.

A second try by wing Dan King converted by Liam Reeve took Waterloo to within two points of the lead and, in the final five minutes, King added two more tries to give them a deserved victory.

Huddersfield’s home game against Percy Park was postponed.