Bedford Athletic suffered a meek 41-0 defeat away to Broadstreet in Regional Two Midlands East on Saturday (31 January), in what was a key match against their fellow rivals for a play off place.
Bedford Athletic were comprehensively outplayed in all aspects of the game to the extent they couldn’t score any points.
From the kick off, Bedford Athletic lost the ball in contact.
An easy penalty gave Broadstreet a kick to the corner, and then a lineout catch and drive that brought a try for their hooker, Kieran Moore after one minute and 50 seconds. Full back William Morgan converted.
Bedford Athletics’ issues in contact continued and, as they struggled physically, they also suffered under the high ball allowing Broadstreet to dominate territory and impose their own game when in possession.
A successful penalty kick at goal followed on 12 minutes from Morgan, and then Broadstreet cut through the visiting defence at ease spotting an obvious mismatch, allowing centre Ryan O’Neill a free run to the line. Broadstreet were 15-0 ahead in almost as many minutes.
When possession finally came the visitor’s way, they engineered a scrum penalty just inside the home side’s 22. Moore was shown a yellow card and the visitors attempted to press home their man advantage.
From the next penalty, they went through multiple phases making no ground and eventually dropped the ball.
They managed to keep the home side pinned in their own half for a while, and a kick ahead forced a goal line drop out.
However, another attacking move from the away side was thwarted with another knock on, and this time Broadstreet countered with pace and power, playing through the rucks as the Bedford Athletic defence desperately scrambled to cover.
Direct running kept the home side on track and eventually their outside centre Robert Knox brushed through the final two tackles to score, with Morgan converting.
Out fought and out thought, Bedford Athletic trailed 22-0 at the break.
One sided affair continues into second half
The second half began with two yellow cards to the home side, with flanker Martin Wood and second row, Liam O’Brien sent to the sin bin for dangerous tackles.
Even against 13 men, the visitors could not find any momentum and more critically any space. They were not helped by losing three line outs in a row, and when they did have the ball they could not find any space.
Issues carried through from the first half saw the team unable to retain the ball in contact, losing the collisions, unable to play into space or build phase pressure through making repeated errors in possession, and with a poorly directed kicking game giving them no territory when other options failed.
As a result, with the weather worsening, scoring chances were effectively nil.
It became clear that scores would only come as a result of errors and the visitors obliged. Twice high balls were knocked on or dropped into the paths of oncoming attackers, and both times Broadstreet capitalised with tries to full back Morgan and wing Oli Farquharson.
Nick Thatcher scored the final try of the day, with Morgan’s conversion bringing up the final 41-0 score line.
The result drops Bedford Athletic down to fourth and outside of the top three – and a home play-off place – by two points.
With six matches left in the season, the aim will be to claw their way back into home play-off contention and as importantly return to winning ways and a significant improvement in performance at home to Old Coventrians in two week’s time.
A vital clash away to third placed Northampton Old Scouts follows at the end of February.
Words by Jeremy Tyrrell
