Bedford Blues bounce back for big win after poor start against Hartpury University

A shocking opening 20 minutes turned into an hour of non-stop adrenaline fuelled action as they went from 12-0 down early on to put on a huge showing at Goldington Road and secure a morale boosting success.

Director of Rugby, Mike Rayer said: “As a coach, you always look for perfection even if it never exists. I thought we scored some great tries, and the last hour of the game was really good. We were rusty at times so some frustrations but a good job overall.”

Trailing 12-0, Alex Day’s opening score came from nothing – and against the run of play – but from there, Blues just completely took off and themselves stunned Hartpury into silence. Sean French and Dean Adamson also dotted down before the break to give Blues a 22-12 advantage.

Adamson scored a quality hat-trick – taking him to 120 tries for the club and just one behind Ben Whetstone in fourth on the all time leaderboard. Joey Conway added two while Jordan Onojaife ran in another for his first of the campaign.

Tring were deserved 39-20 winners at home to Bedford Athletic.

This was a match the visitors took nothing from and would not have finished as close as they did were it not for a spate of uncontested scrums in the second half.

Three defeats in a row mean Bedford are above the Regional One South East relegation places only on points difference and they are in need of a win at home to Hertford this Saturday (3pm).

Tring had an early advantage that they never relinquished when they shunted the first scrum backwards, won a penalty for the maul being collapsed from the next line out and from the next penalty kick to touch set up a series of drives that resulted in a penalty under the posts kicked by scrum half Ben Hogan on 10 minutes.