Birmingham and Solihull

League tables never lie, and we know that the Bees are bottom of the RFU Championship and haven’t won a game yet. What seems evident is that they are upping their game this year in preparation for the relegation play-offs. At this early stage in the year, it’s very much all or nothing.

For the first time, it doesn’t matter this season if you finish at the bottom of the Championship as long as you don’t come last amongst the bottom 4 teams in the relegation play-offs.

It appeared to all that Bees gave up early in the season after a 15-point penalty by the RFU but now many are noticing them upping their game. Birmingham/Solihull Bees are becoming an unknown quantity, their average losing margin last year was for example 25 points, and this year it’s been an average of just 16 .

They lost their first game this year heavily to Bedford 10 – 49 but a week later they drew against the Cornish Pirates! The following week they lost by 27 points to Rotherham Titans but then by only a point to Moseley.

So the question is which team will turn up?

The team that scored 36 points against league-leaders Bristol and drew against the Pirates would be a tough contest for anyone in the League.

The team that leaked 49 points to Bedford and 42 points to the Titans would be something anyone in the division would like to take a crack at.

Definitely belying the Bees league position, Simon Hunt (Bees right wing) is the Championships 11th top points scorer and he scored all but 9 (of 24) points last week. Hunt is the Bees’ top points and try scorer, being followed equally on try count by Mitchell Culpin (centre), Cameron Mitchell (centre), Chris Brightwell (flanker) and Ronnie McLean (left wing).

The Knights and the Bees are equal on try their count but the Bees have scored over half of theirs in the last quarter of the game. Of their tries scored, a third have been by wingers, 52% by the rest of the backs and 15% by back row (flankers in this case)

Elsewhere, remembering that the Knights have a game in hand over the Titans and 2 games in hand over Plymouth Albion and Moseley:

Rotherham Titans (9th, 1 point above) host Moseley (8th, 7 points above)
Plymouth Albion (7th, 7 points above) travel to Bristol (top but already beaten by Plymouth) on Sunday