News
Alex Day stays at Goldington Road
Bedford Blues begin a final week of player announcements ahead of the 2022/23 campaign with the news that influential scrum-half Alex Day will remain at Goldington Road next season.
With over 100 Championship games already under his belt, the 28-year-old, sponsored by SHIFT Personal Training Club, will continue to add real leadership and quality to Mike Rayer’s outfit.
Day was one of only three Blues players to make 23 appearances last season, chipping in with two tries, to add to his four appearances in a previous stint on loan in 2019.
On pledging his future to the club, Day said: “I’m over the moon to be staying with Bedford Blues again for the upcoming season. I loved my time at Goldington Road this year and can’t wait to build on what we did last season.
“It’s really exciting to see how far we can take things as a team into the 2022/23 campaign.”
Starting his career in the Northampton Saints Academy, Day showed his potential from a young age, helping England U20s win back-to-back Six Nations titles in 2012 and 2013 before adding the IRB Junior World Championships to his collection.
Several appearances for the Saints ‘A’ side and a beneficial dual-reg at Moseley saw Day make his Northampton first-team debut in November 2013, going on to make 11 appearances in total over the next two years, studying under the expert tutelage of former Blues captain, Lee Dickson.
Not content with playing second fiddle, Day moved to Cornish Pirates in 2015 in search of regular game time and over the course of the next four years was a mainstay down at The Mennaye, making 104 appearances and being named Players’ Player of the Year in 2017/18.
Signed by Saracens the following season, Day went on to make his Sarries Premiership debut in August 2020. Unfortunately, game time was limited due to competition from the likes of Richard Wigglesworth, Aled Davies and Tom Whiteley so he moved to Bedford ready for the 2021/22 campaign.
Director of Rugby, Mike Rayer added: “As much as you can have good 10s, you really must have a decent nine inside them because it is a shared responsibility. Having that link is massively important, it’s been my opinion for a long time now that the nine is crucial; if you look at the French sides at the moment, they all have a lieutenant at nine.
“Linking the forwards and backs is massive and Alex is really experienced at doing that now. He’s starting to get what we’re about and a bit more ball in hand. He does all the technical bits very, very well and is a good voice to have in the changing room.
“We’re pleased to have kept hold of him. Having his experience also as an option off the bench, is going to be huge again because you have to close out games as well as being able to dictate the game from the off which he does so well.”
“If you look at the spine of the team, it’s really important to have a strong hooker, second row, number eight, nine and 10; then plus our midfield makes me really excited about our own group. Throw in what we’ll have available from Northampton and it’s a really good mix.”
