RFU Championship: Birmingham & Solihull Bees 20 Worcester Warriors 27

Seventy-five minutes after and one hundred miles north of where Birmingham & Solihull were giving champions elect Worcester an almighty scare, the plucky part-timers of non league Crawley Town were enjoying their own, round ball, version of David's appointment with Goliath.

Just as had been the case at Damson Park the underdogs yapped and snapped threateningly around the giant's heels causing considerable consternation and winning admirers in the process.

But just as was to be the case for Crawley at Old Trafford Russell Earnshaw's Bees were left with nothing more than plaudits and a restorative confidence tonic to take forward to the rest of the campaign.

Manchester United march on in the FA Cup and Worcester Warriors continue their procession towards the their own ultimate prize, safe in the knowledge they have fielded their second string and got away with it.

Just why can't David beat Goliath on more afternoons like these? There is no doubt a slingshot would prove darned useful on such occasions, yet the laws of both footballing codes generally frown on the use of projectiles.

Invariably the answer, therefore, is to beat them at their own game and for Crawley this meant out-passing Sir Alex Ferguson's men for long periods and for Bees it meant out-muscling, out-fighting and out-thinking their opposite numbers.

Their experienced half-back partnership of Rod Petty and Mark Woodrow did just that to Ollie Frost and Joey Carlisle. The Worcester combination might be individually faster, stronger and fitter but when the race was over the first half yard, as we all know that takes place in the head and the winners wore black.

When Frost goes to sleep tonight he will still be able to smell Bees' Australian scrum half. And when Carlisle reviews this game he will notice how Woodrow mastered the slippy ball and tacky surface with much greater authority.

That wasn't the Championship strugglers' only area of superiority either. Man for man they were far better in the front row. Bees' tighthead Leo Halavatau - a work in progress who has never been capped nor even played top flight rugby - gave England international Matt Mullan a torrid afternoon.

Ross McMillan cast a shadow over Chris Fortey and Rob Dugard handed Warriors' Oxbridge-educated prop Oliver Tomaszczyk a lesson not to forget.

And only an outstanding performance from Matt Kvesic was able to prevent the England Under 20 from being totally subsumed by the perpetual motion of opposite number Mike Denbee.

The openside was everywhere, as long as everywhere was six inches above the surface and Kvesic would have known he was in a battle.

But just as was the case in Manchester the game was decided by a single score. There was nothing to separate Bees and Worcester until the 69th minute when one missed tackle allowed Rob Higgitt to spring Oriol Ripol for the winning try.

Ripol and Higgitt had been largely anonymous for most of the match yet one moment of class and clarity was enough to claim the day. And that's why Goliath has such a good record against David.

BEES: Winter; Hunt, Grove O, Cox (Barkley 72), Davey (Culpin 45); Woodrow, Petty (Williams 74); Dugard (Reid 74), McMillan, Halavatau (Tau 61), Sanderson, Noonan, Connolly (Clayton 49-53), Denbee, Earnshaw (Clayton 59)

WORCESTER: Pennell (Walker 54); Short, Grove A, Higgitt (King 70), Ripol; Carlisle, Frost (Silver 54 ); Mullan (Black 54), Fortey (Shervington 54), Tomaszczyk, Bowley (Wood 70), Kitchener, Collins, Kvesic, Balding (Freeman 61)

Referee: Ian Tempest (RFU)