The Dark Art: Hoppa travels to Bedford for the Jersey Boys.

Hoppa was kept home due to adverse weather and a rather splendid malt. As he sat and surfed, he ended up with the blues. So with thanks to the guys at Bedford Blues, for the following report and photo.

Bedford Blues 38 Jersey 21

Bedford Blues put their past two league defeats behind them as the picked up an important bonus point win over a dogged Jersey on Saturday afternoon.

Anyone who visited St Peter earlier in the season will know that the Islanders never give up until the end and that was certainly the case at Goldington Road with the score standing at 26-16 with eight minutes remaining. But Bedford had enough in the tank to dot down twice more although the visitors did score a consolation deep in stoppage time.

It was a frantic start to the game with James Pritchard and former Blues man Ross Broadfoot exchanging penalties with the former leading 2-3 (or 6-9) after 32 minutes. Bedford then scored the first of their five tries when the lineout ball was collected and the forwards marched on with Neil Cochrane scoring from the back of the maul. Pritchard then rounded the half off with his third penalty of the afternoon to make it 14-9 after Chris Levesley was binned for not releasing a tackle.

The second half started with Bedford on the ascendancy and it didn’t take long for Jake Sharp to score. Broadfoot failed to find touch and the ball was returned through Josh Bassett and James Stephenson  before the number ten took over to score in the corner but it was a little too wide for Pritchard.

Jersey were back to a full complement but they could do nothing when Bedford’s forwards carried out a carbon copy of the opening try and Cochrane popped up again with the ball but this time Pritchard did convert to make it 26-9.

Jersey still had a fighting chance and they used the Goldington Slope to their advantage in the 66th minute when number eight Guy Thompson played in Nicky Griffiths to cross the whitewash and Broadfoot added the extras.

But the revival didn’t last long. Another Bedford lineout saw Luke Baldwin break with pace from the back and he played in Mark Atkinson for the score which Pritchard converted. Five minutes after that and it was game, set and match as Ben Gulliver found himself on the right wing and played in by the stand-in half back combination of Phil Boulton and Mike Howard to make it 38-16. Thompon got a try deep into stoppage time which was unconverted but it made little difference as Bedford moved back into second place in the Championship.