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REPORT | Try fest in Tappers’ Testimonial Match
There were tries galore at Goldington Road as Pat Tapley concluded his year of testimonial celebrations by playing a staring role in a 76-76 draw between a Bedfordshire Invitational and a Cambridgeshire Invitational XV.
The perfect way to kickstart celebrate the afternoon and toast a man who has given a decade’s service to Bedford Blues. He scored a hat-trick as part of 24 tries in total with some former Bedford legends re-uniting to wear the jersey in support of a great teammate.
Current Blues captain, Alex Day also scored a hat-trick playing for the Bedfordshire side, while forwards duo, Oli Curry and Joe Atkinson both scored twice.
For Curry, he spent a good numbers of years at Goldington Road as a player. In this game, he scored as many tries as in his entire 51 First XV appearances.
Unfortunately, this fixture doesn’t count towards his overally Blues tally but he also came up with the goods and two tries, Sean McCarthy also got in on the act as did Charlie Reed who is only up the road as a coach at Northampton Saints Academy these days.
For the Cambridgeshire side, a little harder to identify the try scorers with many players from local clubs afforded the opportunity to run out at Goldington Road. For them, Darryl Veenendaal and Brendan Burke both featured but didn’t score; Jon Phillips also turned out for Beds.
Michael Le Bourgeois’ future brother-in-law, Stu Livesey was one of the players to represent and dot down for Cambridgeshire, sadly the rest of the try scorers a little harder to identify.
As you can already tell from the try scorers list above, many players who featured in yesterday’s Blues’ fixture with Ealing again laced up the boots, in what was a fantastic show of support to Tappers.
An attendance of 661 exemplary and a great afternoon of rugby at Goldington Road as the curtain fell on the 2023/24 campaign.
See you all again next season, #BluesFamily
*Matchday Photography by Roy Long and Simon Fraser*
