Bedford Athletic were thrashed 82-0 by league leaders Oundle. In a match that highlighted the gulf between the top and bottom sides in the league, there was no disguising the fact that Oundle – who scored 12 tries, converting 11 of them – were the vastly superior team.
The Ath remain bottom of RFU Regional South East Division One and are now 11 points adrift and need a huge shift of fortune to avoid relegation while Oundle are coasting towards the league title with a 100% record.
Bedford Athletic had the first attacks of the match but very little else.
A couple of early penalties saw the side force a lineout on the home side’s 22 but that was overthrown and that was pretty much the end of the visitor’s scoring chances.
Oundle scored regularly throughout the first 40 minutes with tries arriving in the 5th, 11th, 15th and 20th minutes to see the bonus point claimed by the end of the first quarter.
Two quick tries before half time together with five conversions out of six saw the half end with Oundle 40 points to the good, with outside centre Harry Winch scoring two tries.
The third quarter saw three more converted tries added with lock, Matthew Waring adding his second in this period, all of which were successfully converted for a 61-0 lead.
The visitors then staunched the scoring for a time until a flurry of three tries in the final five minutes saw the score advance to 82-0.
Winch completed his hat trick and flanker Joe Bercis added a second. Fly half, Ben Young kicked 11 out of 12 conversions to finish the match with 22 points.
The only bright spot on the day for the visiting team was that all their relegation rivals finished the day with defeats and no bonus points so the position at the bottom of the table remains unchanged with seven matches left to play.
This Saturday (25 January) they play their rearranged match away to Hertford with a 3pm kick off.
Words by Jeremy Tyrrell
