Bedford Blues snatch late win from jaws of defeat in thrilling finish against Hartpury

And forwards coach Tom Cruse is hoping the win can be a springboard to kickstarting a successful season.

Far from a vintage performance, Blues managed somehow to stay in the fight and Joel Matavesi finished off a scintillating passage of play from a lineout on halfway to secure all five points.

Cruse said: “I didn’t think I’d be talking about winning with five minutes to go, but the important thing is that we found a way to win it at the end.

“We showed a good bit of bottle and put a launch on them to get the score.

“It was a massive defensive effort at the end there to get us over the line. But you only have to look at the score to see there’s frustrations.

“We weren’t at the races in the first half, so there’s plenty to get stuck into this week.

“I’m hoping this win sparks us into life as we’re still finding ourselves as a group. Early on in the season, you just need to find a few results to get the momentum going, so hopefully this can be a springboard.”

Blues were off the pace in the opening 40 minutes.

They weren’t their cohesive best in attack, allowed Hartpury to come forwards at will, and were on the wrong end of the scoreboard for all but two minutes.

On the bright side, they were very efficient when in the red zone and three entries into the Hartpury 22m resulted in the same number of tries to keep them in the fight at 26-21 behind at the break.

Alex Day produced a real captain’s contribution to score twice, while Lucas Titherington dotted down an important first score in Blues colours.

A couple of penalties from Hartpury’s Harry Bazalgette kept the scoreboard ticking over for the visitors, but thanks to a poacher's finish from the returning Joe Howard, Blues remained just one score behind to set up the grandstand finish.