REPORT | Blues steal victory in frantic finish

Posted: 5th October 2024
 

A superb team try right at the death ensured Bedford Blues stole victory from the jaws of defeat as they snuck past Hartpury 35-32 in another Goldington Road cracker.

Far from a vintage performance, Blues managed somehow to stay in the fight and set up another trademark grandstand finish – Joel Matavesi finishing off a scintillating passage of play from a lineout on halfway to secure all five points.

Blues Forwards Coach, Tom Cruse said: “I didn’t think I’d be talking about winning with five minutes to go but the important thing is that we found a way to win it at the end.

“We showed a good bit of bottle and put a launch on them to get the score. A massive defensive effort at the end there to get us over the line. But you only have to look at the score to see there’s frustrations, we weren’t at the races in the first half, so plenty to get stuck into next week.

“I’m hoping this win sparks us into life as we’re still finding ourselves as a group. Early on in the season, you just need to find a few results to get the momentum going so hopefully this can be a springboard.”

Blues were off the pace in that opening 40 minutes and it seemed like they still had the Coventry defeat in the backs of their minds. They weren’t their cohesive best in attack, allowed Hartpury to come forwards at will, and were on the wrong end of the scoreboard for all but two minutes.

On the bright side, they were very efficient when in the red zone and three entries into the Hartpury 22m resulted in the same number of tries to keep them in the fight at 26-21 behind at the break.

Alex Day with a real captain’s contribution to score twice, while Lucas Titherington dotted down an important first score in Blues colours.

A couple of penalties from Hartpury’s Harry Bazalgette kept the scoreboard ticking over for the visitors, but thanks to a poachers finish from the returning Joe Howard, Blues remained just one score behind.

That set up the grandstand finish as Bedford finally put together an attack they are so often renowned for. It’s never boring at Goldington Road.