Ealing Trailfinders completed a perfect league campaign after comfortably beating Bedford Blues 52-14 in the last regular game of the Champ Rugby season, with both sides having already secured a home play-off semi-final.
Ealing, who have now won 26 league games out of 26, scored eight tries to the Blues’ two, with George Worth and Michael Le Bourgeois touching down for Bedford on a tricky afternoon for Mike Rayer’s men.
Coventry, Worcester Warriors, Chinnor and Hartpury join these two clubs in the Champ Rugby play-offs after the final round of fixtures on Saturday (9 May).
However, the heavy favourites for yet another Champ Rugby title are Ealing, who ran in eight tries with seven different scorers to complete their 100% record, taking their total points tally for the season to 1,125.
Ealing too good
Despite their dominance in recent years, Ealing will still not be promoted to ‘The Prem’ should they go on to lift the Champ Rugby title on Sunday 31 May, with the club reportedly looking at other league structures to challenge themselves.
The United Rugby Championship (URC), which features clubs such as current leaders, Glasgow Warriors, Heineken Cup finalists Leinster, Cardiff and others from South Africa and Italy have been heavily mooted as potential suitors for the West London club.
Read: Frustrated Ealing in advanced talks to join URC (RugbyPass)
On paper, Bedford Blues are their nearest challengers in second place, but again Ealing proved far too strong as they put a half century of points on Mike Rayer’s men for the second time this season.
The Blues were however the first on the board; an excellent run from the returning Ryan Hutler created space, allowing him to offload to George Worth, who ran in under the posts to give Bedford an early 7-0 lead.
Geordie Gwynn hit back three minutes later to restore parity, while he had his second of the afternoon shortly after Kyle Hatherell had put Ealing into a 14-7 lead.
The Ealing bonus point was wrapped up by the half-hour mark, with Angus Kernohan dotting down to leave the hosts 28-7 ahead at the break.
Le Bourgeois offers hope
Conor Oliver continued the try scoring for Ealing seven minutes into the second half, but with 20 minutes left on the clock, there was an outside chance of a Blues comeback courtesy of a Bedford stalwart.
Michael Le Bourgeois crashed through three ultimately ineffective tackles, with the centre strolling in the Blues’ second try of the afternoon, going on to add his own extras to pull the scoreboard back to 33-14.
The hope was short lived, as Kyle Whyte quickly re-established home dominance, while two further tries in the final ten minutes for hooker, Harry Thompson and Deago Bailey took Ealing past 50 points.
While a final day defeat is always a disappointment, Bedford Blues can look back on their extended league campaign with pride, having won 18 of their 26 games, finishing in second place on 97 points.
Coventry – who finished on 93 points – will host Hartpury in the play-off quarter finals after a final day victory over Worcester Warriors, who go on to host Chinnor in the other quarter-final.
Bedford Blues will be back in action under the Friday night lights at Goldington Road on Friday 22 May, with their semi-final kicking off at 19:45, in which they will face the highest-placed winning quarter finalist.
