Bedford Athletic suffer humiliating hammering at Sudbury

A seventh defeat in a row means Athletic end the league campaign having lost to all nine sides that were not relegated in the second half of the season, conceding 442 points in that period at an average of 40 per match, and needing to see a serious improvement in attitude, application and competence.

Athletic had early possession into a strong wind, but this soon worked against them as they were stripped of the ball running out of defence and then stood and watched as home winger Gareth Pugh ran the ball in for a try inside five minutes.

From a midfield scrum home captain No.8 Henry Cowling ran hard at the visiting defence and an intelligent inside line from full back Austin Beckett in support saw him split the defence for the second score.

Sudbury then missed out on a third try due to a forward pass, but as they were contesting the breakdown harder and simply quicker in thought and deed, they soon recovered possession and exploited space for right winger Jonathan Taylor to score the third try.

With all three tries converted by Sam Rust, Sudbury led 21-0 inside 10 minutes.

Over-exuberance from the home side at the breakdown started to cost them as the penalty count began to rise in favour of Athletic and this stemmed the tide somewhat, allowing the visitors possession and a chance to play.

This was frustrated by a seriously malfunctioning lineout with balls to the back not straight in the wind and Sudbury picking off those thrown to the front.

Abandoning the lineout as a source of possession, Athletic turned to their far more reliable scrum option. And this began to pay some dividends when a scrum penalty and quick tap led to a sin-binning for home captain Cowling for slowing down play for the umpteenth time.

Strong running from individuals such as No.8 Andy Ince and prop forwards Lewis Ager and Tom Prowse gave the side some momentum, but they too often lacked support and there was no significant penetration of the home line that might have led to the creation of a scoring chance.

In fact the final chance of the half fell to Sudbury as hooker Sam Bixby intercepted the ball and tried to run the length of the field but eventually kicked the ball dead.

The second half began with Bedford Athletic dropping a loose ball in midfield with Sudbury quickly gathering and running the ball 50m to put pressure on the visiting line.

When the ball was spread wide, winger Taylor was on hand again to score the bonus point try.

The next two tries came from intercepts as Athletic tried to attack, but too often their ball was slow and their moves laboured with the plays picked off leaving Sudbury 40-0 ahead 10 minutes into the second half.

As the visiting defence began to crumble Sudbury soon had their seventh and eighth tries with relative ease to leave themselves 54-0 ahead on the hour mark.

When Lewis Ager stole a Sudbury lineout, itself intercepted from a Bedford Athletic throw, he was able to put the visitors on the front foot with Andy Ince carrying on the move to the try line before being illegally stopped and injured in the process.

A yellow card to Sudbury saw Athletic tap and go again from the penalty and another series of offences in front of their posts saw Sudbury concede a penalty try and another yellow card.

Ince leaving the field injured was a blow to the visitors. Being down to 13 men was no impediment to Sudbury as they scored another three tries in this period.

In response Nick Thomas did make a break to the line but was hauled down just short and lacked the support to capitalise on the chance.

The afternoon drew to a close with Sudbury scoring at will, only needing to beat the first tackle and on some occasions just to run fast in order to score their tries.

The only saving grace for the visitors was that the referee blew for full time early and the scoreboard operator lost a conversion during the course of the rout, depriving the home side of two points.