Bedford Ath suffered another loss at the weekend, as they remained eleven points adrift at the bottom of Regional South East One after a comfortable defeat at Hertford.
The home side eased to a 43-15 victory in this rearranged Regional One South East encounter. The visitors led briefly in the first half and were in touch at half time but eventually fell away, conceding seven tries as they did so.
A fast start from Hertford saw them into an early lead through a try by winger Hugo Creasey in the second minute converted by full back Louis Kendrick.
For a time, Bedford Athletic were competitive and worked their way back into the game.
They scored their first try though electric winger Bradley McKenna on 17 minutes and although full back Sam Valpy was unsuccessful with the conversion, he was on the mark three minutes later with a penalty to see Bedford Athletic lead 8-7 at the end of the first quarter.
Just past the half hour mark, Hertford scored again though left winger Ben Bridgewood.
The turning point in the match came just before half time, as Bedford Athletic lost an attacking lineout close to the home side’s line and Hertford were able to counter attack which eventually led to a second try for Creasey and a ten point swing against the visiting side.
Hertford went into half time with a 17-8 advantage.
Whilst several opportunities had been created throughout the half the familiar stories of a lack of accuracy and discipline meant it was difficult for Bedford Athletic to make an impression on the scoreboard.
Injuries and sin bin see Ath self-implode
In the second half the match began to get away from the visitors.
From the kick off, Hertford scored their fourth and bonus point try through centre Ben Gilchrist and ten minutes later they had their fifth as Taite Williams with a conversion added by Kendrick to lead 29-8.
Matters were getting worse for Bedford Athletic as a string of injuries to Nick Tarr, Sam Valpy, Bradley McKenna and Lewis Ager saw the side reduced to 14 players.
They did well to score a second try through replacement prop Tom Prowse on 57 minutes – his first for the team – which Valpy converted, but when Lewis Sharp was sin binned on the hour mark for escalating a brawl any chance that the team had effectively left the field with him.
It was Hertford who were to go on to dominate the final quarter of the game with two more converted tries ticking the score up to 43-15 by the end of the game.
With just one solitary bonus point to show from their last seven matches, Bedford Athletic remain rooted to the bottom of the table and with sides ahead of them not playing today still eleven points from safety with six matches remaining.
The first of these is at home to Shelford this Saturday with a 3pm kick off at Putnoe Woods.
Words by Jeremy Tyrrell
