Billingham picked up their first win of 2015 as they ran in nine tries against basement boys Beverley.
Greenwood Road has become a fortress in recent weeks, and it’s now six wins from eight on home soil for Billingham as they cruised to a 59-10 win.
The victory further strengthened the Teessiders’ aspirations of a top-six finish in National Three North, and now sitting 37 points clear of yesterday’s opponents, the threat of relegation has been all but extinguished.
After the match captain Peter Evans admitted Beverley’s expansive style played right into the host’s hands.
“So far this year we’ve had two tough away games. Sandal are top of the league and are a good team, and then Sheffield Tigers who have some big, physical lads.
“Both scorelines flattered the opposition and it was closer than it seemed, but that’s the level just above us.
“There are the top four teams in this league who punish you if you make a mistake.
“Today we were up against a team where we did make a couple of mistakes but got away with them.
“You can go into these kind of games with your head screwed on, but you can quickly get dragged into a dog fight. Fortunately they played a style of rugby we didn’t expect.
“They played an expansive style which suited us and were kicking it back to us, leaving lots of open space for our backs to take advantage of.
“We’re dangerous when teams don’t kick well and we run the ball back at pace. That’s how we’ve tended to score tries this year, off opponent’s mistakes and by playing open, fluent rugby.”
Despite being bottom of the league and strugglers on the road this season, it was Beverley who had the better of the opening exchanges and enjoyed much of the territorial advantage.
But a cutting edge eluded them on a chilly Teesside afternoon, and Billingham scored their first try through Luke Wilson who darted over in the corner.
That score came largely against the run of play as Beverley continued to impress in the opening 20 minutes, but a penalty miss from fly-half Phil Duboulay set the tone for their first half.
On the half hour mark, Billingham did make their superiority show with full-back Evans touching down, before converting his own score.
That opened the floodgates as Chris Hyndman and Ryan Kirkbride secured the hosts a bonus point before the break, while a Duboulay penalty left the score at 26-3 at half-time.
But it was one-way traffic in the second period as Billingham ultimately played out a training session, with Hyndman completing his hat-trick, along with other scores from Wilson, Evans and Dan Burns.
“We said before the season we wanted to be clear (from relegation) by February and we’ve almost achieved that,” Evans added.
“We’re almost there but we don’t just want to stay up, we want to progress this season.
“Last season was hard and we had a lot of new lads, but this season we’ve stepped up and we want to keep moving.
“The lads have become more accustomed to the league, everyone’s grown up and are now bigger and stronger.
“Our pack is also stronger and we now hold our own. Last year we struggled to get any ball, but now we use whatever ball we do get very well.
“We had to keep our composure today. Sometimes we went for the Hollywood pass but we got the five points.”
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