BIRMINGHAM and Solihull Bees kept their Twickenham dream alive with a 35-20 win against Rugeley RFC to advance to the Papa Johns Community Cup quarter-finals.
Lewis Edwards scored 15 points from the kicking tee as Ryan Sleaford, Deaglan O’Brien, PJ Hatch and Cameron May all crossed for tries at Portway.
And Bees will travel to North Bristol RFC in the next round who won all 20 of their Counties 3 Tribute Gloucestershire South league matches this season.
The match was Solihull’s first at home since January 28 as Jonny Higgins and Adam Trombley returned to the side whilst Peter Gordon was rested and Stephen Johnson was named on the bench.
And Bees took the lead on 11 minutes when quick hands from Liam Dunne and O’Brien sent Sleaford away to score the game’s first try out wide which was well-converted by Edwards.
The home side increased their lead to 10 points from the restart as Edwards kicked a penalty only for Rugeley to score a penalty of their own through David Bagnall.
However, O’Brien made a superb interception on 25 minutes and left the Rugeley defence for dead as he sprinted across the line to score under the posts as Edwards converted.
The visitors refused to go away and scored their first try when Reiss Joyce executed a clever chip and chase as Bagnall converted before a missed penalty shortly before half time sent the Bees into the break with a seven-point lead.
And Bees made Rugeley pay for that missed penalty when Hatch collected Edwards’ pass to score in the corner at the start of the second period with the latter unable to add the conversion.
Edwards missed a penalty shortly after but was successful with his next kick as he added three points to Bees’ total after Rugeley were penalised for not rolling away at the breakdown.
However, Rugeley reduced the deficit with another Bagnall penalty before Michael Wilkes crossed shortly after as the former kicked the conversion to close the gap to five points.
The home side dominated at the scrum and breakdown thereafter as Edwards made it a two-score game with his third penalty of the afternoon.
And as Rugeley pressed for a late try, Bees pounced on a loose ball as Higgins kicked towards the corner and O’Brien collected before creating space for May to finish with the try converted by Edwards.
Bees’ clash with North Bristol takes place on Saturday, April 22 with kick-off at 2.30pm at Oaklands.
