Bedford Blues gives Premiership Saracens a scare in friendly

In the end, the night got away from the Championship side but they were more than a match against superior opposition for most of the contest and almost sprang an upset.

Blues led 17-7 just after the break but ultimately couldn’t match the Premiership side in terms of intensity for the full 80 minutes.

Bedford director of rugby Mike Rayer said: “Over the full 80 minutes, a really tough battle and you’d probably expect Sarries to put a bit of icing on the cake at the end. But nevertheless, delighted with the lads for their physicality and lots of positives to take.

“We’ve worked on things a lot these past few weeks to ensure we were ready to face Premiership opposition in back-to-back weeks. Some of that came good tonight and it’s about finding that consistency ready for the league campaign.

“We’ll be okay if we find that physicality shown tonight.”

An inspired Andy Onyeama-Christie scored twice on the night, as part of seven tries in total.

Tom Willis opened the scoring with a nice snipe from the base, before Bedford turned things on its head to lead at the break through tries by Jac Arthur and Luke Frost.

When Jake Garside extended the lead with his first touch following a half-time introduction, and Alex Lozowski was binned for chatting back to the referee, it looked like all the momentum was with the home side.

But after Brandon Jackson ran the distance following a Bedford knock on to halve the deficit, the floodgates started to open and Saracens scored 40 unanswered points.

Onyeama-Christie’s first levelled the scoring before a penalty try edged them in-front. Josh Hallett and Angus Hall added gloss to the performance late on.

Blues complete their pre-season games away at Northampton Saints on Friday.