Delight for Bedford Blues at Cornish Pirates but Ampthill throw away lead

Syd Blackmore scored one of Ampthill's tries but they'd go on to lose the game at Coventry.

Blues secured a thoroughly deserved 41-21 success at Cornish Pirates, their first victory on the Cornish coast since October 2018.

It was 14-6 in favour of the home side at the break as hooker Will Crane went over, as did Rusiate Tuima, two Will Maisey penalties replying for Blues.

Bedford were aggressive from the first moment after the restart and scored within three minutes; Ethan Grayson and George Hendy linking to set Alex Day away under the posts. The conversion made it 14-13 before another Maisey penalty put Blues in-front.

The hosts scored their only points of the second half after 54 minutes to go ahead through Robin Wedlake, but Blues scored twice in two minutes on the hour as they struck decisive blows. Joey Conway’s score levelled proceedings before Bedford stole a lineout and crashed over through Jacob Fields.

The bonus point came on 70 minutes as from a tap and go, Blues were off and Day grabbed his second. Two more penalties from Maisey then made it job done.

Ampthill, meanwhile, were narrowly beaten 26-24 at Coventry.

The visitors built a good lead early on. First Conor Rankin had an overlap out wide and touched down in the corner. Gwyn Parks added the extras from the touchline on his full debut.

Then Ampthill doubled their lead following a line-out 10 metres out through Syd Blackmore off the back of the maul, Parks again on target with the conversion.

Ampthill extended their lead on 29 minutes Ben Cambriani chipping his man and racing through to touch down, Parks this time narrowly wide with the conversion.

However, from then momentum swung. Individual errors and some poor execution allowed the hosts back into the game and it was 12-19 by half-time.

Theo Dan crashed over for a bonus point try after the break for a 12-24 lead, however, a quick Coventry try back, Dan being sin-binned and then a fourth Coventry try turned things around, and that was how it would finish.

Ampthill head coach Paul Turner said: “I thought we really let ourselves down today. After a great start and playing some excellent rugby we went 0 v 19 up after 30 minutes and all the momentum was with us. We should have been smart enough to go on and win the game.

“Instead after half time our performance dropped far below expectation, big errors crept in and full credit to Coventry for taking advantage. It was really disappointing and we all have to take a good look at ourselves, put a things right and bounce back against London Scottish next week.”