With another new rugby union season just around the corner, Bedford Blues’ Director of Rugby, Mike Rayer has been looking forward to the task of building on an excellent runner-up finish in last season’s second tier as the build up to Champ Rugby continues.
After meeting local fans at a special event at Goldington Road on Thursday night, the Blues are now set and ready to go ahead of a difficult Champ Rugby opener against reigning champions, Ealing Trailfinders next Saturday (4 October) in pursuit of a play-off finish.
It’s all change for the second tier this season, with a larger than ever schedule involving 14 teams plus an season-ending play-off campaign that Bedford Blues will be aiming for a spot in.
Along with a visual rebrand, Champ Rugby will include relegation and a relegation play-off for the new season, as well as seeing the top six sides advance to the promotion play-offs, where the overall winner will face the Premiership’s bottom club for a chance to gain promotion.
Promotion to the Premiership (re-named ‘The Prem’) for Champ Rugby clubs is still subject to the RFU’s Minimum Standards Criteria (MSC).
There will be 26 rounds of fixtures, where each team will play each other home and away, before the division is split, allowing the top six to enter into a play-off competition.
The teams who finish in the top two places will automatically go through to the play-off semi-finals, where they will face the winners of the quarter-finals, made up of the sides who finish third to sixth.
The overall winners of the play-off will then face the bottom side in the Premiership over two legs in a promotion/relegation play-off, subject to the MSC which states – among other stipulations – that a club’s ground should have a capacity of “at least 10,001”.
For now though, Director of Rugby, Rayer has his sights set on Ealing next Saturday.
“A big challenge”
Rayer is only too aware of how difficult maintaining momentum from one season to the next can be, particularly with considerable turnover in his squad ahead of the new campaign.
That includes a new forwards coach in Cameron Boon, replacing Tom Cruse who has joined Worcester Warriors after they returned to the league system, as well as a number of new faces in the playing squad.
Read: Bedford Blues to face Worcester Warriors as Championship increases to 14 teams
Rayer explained that the first challenge for him and his coaching staff has been getting the group all on the same page in pre-season, a campaign that included a trip to Cornwall.
“It’s a big challenge for us; we’ve lost quite a few players”, said Rayer.
“We’ve been able to keep a lot of continuity over the last couple of years which probably aided us in what happened last season. It’s been a big challenge integrating about 10 or 11 players this year.
“But that is good, different voices, different challenges, we’ve got a new forwards coach as well. It’s good to hear the new voices but the proof of the pudding is when we get underway.
“We went to [Cornish] Pirates to play on a Friday night, and stayed down and did a bit of coasteering. In essence, spending hours on a coach trip serves a purpose as well because the boys sit by each other and chat.
Read: Impressive Blues put Pirates to the sword in pre-season outing
“You have some social stuff you do but rather than force it, you try to make it organic and pick times out that naturally feed that process of bringing people together.”
Former disciples now opposition coaches
Such has been Rayer’s longevity at Goldington Road – the coming season will be his 21st in charge of the Blues – some of his former players have now gone on to forge coaching careers, with just two former Bedford names now head coaches at rival Champ Rugby clubs.
One of those is Alex Rae, head coach at old rivals, Coventry who the Blues face in the second league game of the season, as well as Darren Fearn who was appointed as the head coach of Doncaster Knights in June.
Rayer however, is typically unfazed.
“There are a few in the coaching group who have been at Bedford. That’s all good.
“They have probably got the inside track on me, knowing how I operate, but that is the great challenge. You can’t stand still; you’ve got to move on and look for the different trends in the game and see what ceiling the new players have coming in.
“We don’t know enough about them at this stage, but we’d like to think we’ve got players in who have got a bit of growth in them.”
For fans looking on, new faces in the squad look to have integrated well and an elongated pre-season has proven to be fruitful.
Victories over the Pirates, Ampthill and National One side, Blackheath that served as a testimonial for the Blues’ all-time leading try scorer, Dean Adamson were all solid performances, while their only pre-season defeat came against European finalists, Northampton Saints.
The challenges at the beginning of the league campaign do not get much more difficult.
Indeed, Rayer will come up against former faces, Rae and Fearn within the first five games as Bedford Blues face up against sides who they may well be challenging in the end of season play-offs come May.
After the Ealing opener on 4 October, the Blues travel to Butts Park Arena to face Coventry, before facing Hartpury – who were in the top four for a lot of last season, before finishing sixth – Ampthill and Doncaster Knights before October is out.
These games at the beginning of a mammoth league season will give Rayer a good idea of where his new look squad is at, and set the tone for the rest of a bone-crunching league campaign that sees just seven rest weeks between October 2025 and May 2026.
That campaign begins in just eight days time, with the league itself kicking off the night before as Nottingham host the aforementioned, Doncaster Knights under the floodlights on 3 October.
Tickets for the Blues’ league opener against Ealing Trailfinders at Goldington Road on 4 October can be bought here.
