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Round 14 of the Championship has the Knights travel to Goldington Road to take on a Bedford Blues side that sit second in the RFU Championship.

There are no easy trips to Bedford as has already been identified in interviews with the Knights coaching team, this game will be no exception.

Last season we lost to Bedford 12 – 26 at Castle Park. In the reverse fixture The Knights won 12 – 23 at Goldington Road. So far the Knights have lost the home fixture to Bedford but many view the game as a “ could have won”.

In the game poor defence gifted a brace of tries to full back Ed Thrower to match the Knight’s tries by Tristan Roberts and Steve McColl. Bedford’s winning third try was scored in the last couple of minutes whilst the Knights had 14 men, Dan Frazier finding himself in the sin bin. The mood in the camp was one of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Last weekend Bedford scored eight tries against Esher’s two. Duncan Taylor (centre) scored a brace of tries for Bedford within 10 minutes (5 & 10 minutes), Chris Goodman (No. 8) touched down just before the half-time interval. Johannes Schmidt (wing) scored 3 minutes into the second half, followed by William Fraser (flanker) three minutes later. Five minutes before the hour mark, Schmidt scored his second try and then achieved his hatrick of tries seven minutes later. Brenda Burke (centre) scored the eighth try four minutes before time.

5 hat tricks in the Championship for Bedford this season highlights what can happen if you let them get on their game.

Currently the Blues are second in the league with only 2 losses from their 13 games. The Knights are fifth, having lost 6 of theirs. Bedford’s point’s difference is almost three times better than the Knights. They’ve scored an average of over 31 points over the 13 games so far this season and only had an average of 16 points scored against them. The Knights have averaged scoring 5 points more than they’ve conceded, scoring an average of 28 points/game

The Blues’ leading points scorer James Pritchard (full back) is the Championship’s fifth top points scorer, Tristan Roberts is third. In the Championships top 20 try scorer league, Bedford’s Taylor is equal seventh, Thrower (FB/centre) is equal tenth and Ollie Dodge (wing) is equal twelfth.

The only other statistic in the Knights’ favour is that they are joint bottom of discipline league having received only 6 yellow cards, The Blues top the table but they’ve only received 3 more, or spent 30 minutes more than the Knights with 14 men on the pitch.

A particular threat is the Bedford back three, the Blues full back for example has scored more tries that the combined Knight’s pack. The Blues back three are the most lethal try scoring trio of all the back three’s in the Championship.

Elsewhere only Nottingham in sixth could alter the Knights’ league position, third-placed Cornish Pirates and fourth-placed London Welsh are 8 points ahead and seventh placed Rotherham Titans are 11 points behind. Sixth-placed Nottingham, who are 3 points behind welcome the Titans to Meadow Lane. If Nottingham win that game, they would go fifth if we lose. If the Titans win, they’ll stay seventh but would be eighth if Bristol beat Moseley at the Memorial Stadium. Both games happen on Sunday. So the Titans need to win to not drop a position, Nottingham do not. Hopefully that will give the Titans more incentive to win, only Nottingham’s 11 bonus points (Titans – 3) separate the teams in league points scored.

Can the Knights breach the Bedford’s robust defence and prevent their back 3 from violating the Knights’ try line or will Bedford simply demonstrate why they’ve only conceded a difference of 13 points over both of their defeats?

The match at Bedford kicks off at 4.30pm to avoid clashing with the England v South Africa match that will be shown on TV screens around the ground.

Bob and Chris Briggs hope to run a supporter's coach to the game and it would help them a great deal if you would either ring them or e-mail them to let them know you will be on it. Their numbers are 01302 536561 or 07870585045 and their e-mail address is johnbriggs04@aol.com . The response they get will determine the size of coach they order. Please make every effort to get to the match to support the Knights.