BEDFORD BLUES 9 DONCASTER KNIGHTS 6 by John Lowe
Doncaster Knights travelled south to play Bedford Blues strengthened by the return of scrum half Ben Jones and No 8 Russell Earnshaw after injury had caused them to miss the previous week’s victory at Waterloo. For their part, Bedford strengthened their team by the inclusion of prop Peter Cook (on loan from Harlequins) and lock James Percival (on loan from Northampton) to try to counter the powerful Knights’ pack. They also included their usual clutch of academy players from Leicester and Northampton.
The Knights kicked off playing down the infamous Bedford slope and with the wind and rain behind them and, although they had a couple of forward drives early on, it was Bedford who opened the scoring. The Blues young fly half Ben Patston sliced open the Knights’ defence close to the pack on the halfway line and, with support, a try seemed likely. However the Doncaster defence managed to get back but in the process they were penalised, giving Bedford a simple penalty in front of the posts which their fullback James Pritchard duly kicked. Cheered on by their very partisan crowd, who vented their wrath on the Knights, the referee and the touch judges in turn, Bedford took the game to the Knights and they were eventually awarded another penalty 35metres out after 15 minutes which, this time, Pritchard missed. For their part, Doncaster struggled to get their line out working and they lost four in a row and this, coupled with a number of turnovers of ball on contact, meant that the Knights lacked continuity which meant that they could not use the elements as they would have wished. After 20 minutes however they did get a foothold on the Blues 22 and, when the home side were penalised, Knight’s fly half Mark Woodrow kicked a goal from 25 metres out. At this point Doncaster lost prop Simon Bunting with a shoulder injury and he was replaced by Jon Rawson. Bedford then lost flanker Nic Strauss and he was replaced by Ben Pienaar. Most of the next 15 minutes was slugged out in midfield with the referee having to sort out an attritional contest played in atrocious weather. As half-time approached, Doncaster managed to put together a little continuity which lead to a second penalty to Woodrow from 28 metres to make the interval score 6 points to 3 to the Knights.
Playing up the slope and into the elements it was clearly going to take a monumental effort by the Knights to secure any result and they were put under great pressure from the start. Bedford’s influential fly half Patston threatened continually with delicate chips and grubber kicks as well as a couple of searing breaks as the Knights were put under almost constant pressure. Now however it was the Blues turn to have line out problems as the Knight’s pack stole a number of Bedford’s throw ins and the referee penalised their hooker for not straight (much to the disgust on the one-eyed home crowd). As the game reached the hour mark both sides made various substitutions, mainly in the pack. For the most part however it was all Bedford with the Knights only making occasional forays into their opponent’s half. For ten minutes Bedford were camped on the Doncaster line but a series of attempted drives were stopped by a disciplined Knights’ defence and, with only a couple of minutes left, they managed to break out and take play almost up to the Blue’s try line. Just when a Knight’s score seemed imminent, they lost possession a couple of yards short giving the Blues a chance of a breakout followed by a kick ahead which allowed them to take play back to Knight’s 22 metre line when, for once, their discipline let them down and they were penalised. Pritchard’s kick from 23 metres brought the scores level and the game went into injury time. Doncaster failed to put Bedford under pressure from the restart and this enabled the Blues to put the ball back deep into the Knight’s half. Although Doncaster managed to withstand a concerted Bedford drive, they were powerless to prevent the ball being recycled back to man-of-the-match Patston who dropped a goal from about 25 metres out to give the Blues a hard fought, and just about deserved, victory.
After the game, Doncaster’s Director of Rugby Clive Griffiths said that he was disappointed to have lost but was not too despondent as he had always seen the Bedford game as a hard fixture with the home side desperate for the Knights’ scalp. Whilst Bedford had played at the top of their game in the conditions and obviously knew how to play their own sloping pitch, Griffiths felt that his team had not played to their normal level with the conditions tending to negate, to a great extent, the continuity game that was one of the real strengths of the side.
Bedford
15 – James Pritchard; 14 – James Hinkin; 13 – Ollie Dodge; 12 – Matt Allen; 11 – Alex Page; 10 – Ben Patston; 9 – Karl Dickson (Craig Moir – 82); 1 – Peter Cook (Ben Alexander 75); 2 – Matt Price (Chris Whitehead 69); 3 – Dan Cole (Adrian Olver 62); 4 – James Percival; 5 – Arthur Brenton (Mark Comb); 6 – Nic Strauss (Ben Pienaar 21); 7 – Sacha Harding; 8 – Adam Kettle
Doncaster
15 – Anthony Carter; 14 – Ben Gollings; 13 – Spencer Davey; 12 – John Cannon; 11 – Donavon Van Vuuren; 10 – Mark Woodrow; 9 – Ben Jones (David Scully 80); 1 – Simon Bunting (Jon Rawson 20); 2 – Ben Phillips (Steve Boden 58); 3 – Ngalu Tau; 4 – Luke Gross; 5 – Dan Cook (Glen Kenworthy 65); 6 – Simon Grainger (Ollie Cook – 58); 7 – Jason Forster; 8 – Russell Earnshaw
Referee: Rob Debney (RFU)
Crowd 1950 |
