A soaking Goldington Road was the scene of a Premiership Rugby Cup upset on Friday night as Bedford Blues dispatched Bristol Bears 23-14 to significantly hinder the Premiership side’s ambitions of making the knockout stages.
A young Bears side were outplayed by their Championship opposition who mastered the wet conditions far better to run out deserved winners. Bedford touched down for a trio of tries through Nathan Langdon, Will Maisey and Fred Tuilagi, with fly-half Maisey adding another eight points from a pair of penalties and a conversion. Bristol registered just two tries through Sam Wolstenholme and Will Capon, with on-loan Hartpury fly-half Harry Bazalgette adding both conversions.
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On the centenary of these two clubs playing each other, the Bears started brightly but failed to turn their pressure into points. After stopping Bristol’s driving maul early in the contest, Bedford went up the slope and showed their Premiership visitors how to do it, catching and driving hooker Langdon over the line.
After a couple of near misses, Bedford then extended their lead with a well worked try for fly-half Maisey who won the race to dot down a grubber kick in behind. He then added the extras to put the Blues 12-0 up.
Bristol finally kicked into gear and despite heavy rain, produced a string of clever passes to work their way down the field and to within a couple of metres of the try line. But the Blues stood strong through 20 phases of attack before eventually conceding a penalty. And then, having been heroic in their defensive efforts, criminally the Blues switched off to allow alert scrum-half Wolstenholme to take a quick tap a 5m penalty and dart over the whitewash, with Bazalgette adding the extras.
But the Blues kept coming, pinning the Bears back with long kicks to put the back three of Toby Fricker, Deago Bailey and Benjamin Elizalde under significant pressure which eventually resulted in the visitors conceding a penalty that Maisey knocked over to make it 15-7 at the interval.
With very few aces to play from the replacements bench for Pat Lam, it was much of the same for Bristol in the second half, who managed to string more phases together in attack but struggled to find a cutting edge in the damp, with a bigger more physical cast better suited for the contest. In contrast, Bedford took their chances with Tuilagi barrelling over the line following a 5m tap penalty.
The Bears replied with a driving maul try finished off by Capon, expertly converted from wide out on the left wing by Bazalgette, but the visitors’ attacks were generally well met, with the Blues successfully pulling off a series of choke tackles and maul stops to earn momentum sapping turnovers. And in the end the visitors left their lower league opponents without even a losing bonus point to leave them well adrift in their pursuit of a place in the quarter-finals.
Bedford Blues: 15. Louis James, 14. Alfie Garside, 13. Lucas Titherington, 12. Michael Le Bourgeois, 11. Matt Worley, 10. Will Maisey, 9. James Lennon; 1. Jamie Jack, 2. Nathan Langdon, 3. Oisin Heffernan, 4. Luke Frost, 5. Alex Woolford, 6. Fred Tuilagi, 7. Jac Arthur, 8. Cameron King
Replacements: 16. Tommy Herman, 17. Joey Conway, 18. Austin Hay, 19. Joe Howard, 20. Charlie Ulcoq, 21. Alex Day, 22. Louis Haley, 23. Joel Matavesi
Bristol Bears: 15 Benjamin Elizalde, 14 Toby Fricker, 13 Kalaveti Ravouvou, 12 Joe Jenkins, 11 Deago Bailey, 10 Harry Bazalgette, 9 Sam Wolstenholme; 1 Sam Grahamslaw, 2 Will Capon, 3 Jimmy Halliwell, 4 Josh Caulfield, 5 Steele Barker, 6 Paddy Pearce, 7 Jake Heenan, 8 Benjamin Grondona
Replacements : 16 Tomas Gwilliam, 17 Yann Thomas, 18 George Kloska, 19 Joe Owen, 20 Kofi Cripps, 21 Kieran Marmion, 22 Rich Lane, 23 Elias Caven
Referee : Hamish Smales
Assistant Referees: Richard Gordon and Veryan Boscawen