Birmingham and Solihull Bees put disruptions behind them and prepare to face Cornish Pirates

Dec 14 2010 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Mail

RUSSELL Earnshaw returns to Bees today having not missed as many matches as he might have feared.

The Damson Park outfit were forced to postpone two of the three games scheduled during their director of rugby’s absence with the England Sevens, most recently Sunday’s British & Irish Cup opener with Doncaster.

A frozen pitch led to the cancellation of that game and while there is no word yet on when the fixture will go ahead, what is certain is that Bees will stage their rearranged appointment with Cornish Pirates at home tomorrow night.

And Eugene Martin, who has been running things during Earnshaw’s sabbatical, is hoping a midweek trek – sandwiched in between two cup matches – will be a big ask for the men from The Duchy.

“We’ve got to look as this as a chance,” the backs coach said. “I don’t know when they are travelling up but it may be that we can catch them napping.

“It’s not easy for us as a part-time team. Guys are having to work and maybe miss a couple of hours for the pre-match but we must still prepare ourselves properly.

“We have known this situation has been coming for the last two or three weeks and we have put things in place to deal with it. We can’t use these disruptions as an excuse. I don’t want to be standing in the circle at the end saying we should have prepared ourselves better.”

Having not played last weekend, Martin and Earnshaw face a quandary over selection and whether to revert to their first-choice line-up for the Championship which means Rob Connolly’s run at centre will have to wait until Saturday.