Otley 6

Bedford 34

BEDFORD came away with the victory, well deserved, but in a three cornered contest the referee claimed a distinct points advantage. Five yellow cards and one red fully illustrated his inability to run the game with any feeling whatsoever, ruining what would have been a fast and entertaining game.

It was lowered to one of a series of lectures and posturing which even the strong vocal support for each side could not reignite. He was intent on illustrating his ability to understand what goes on in those dark areas, scrum, ruck and maul.

His abject failure saw him produce yellow cards for both hookers when they had a spat and worse still when he did the same of two props, what does he expect them to do? Stamping, however, did not rate consideration nor did he referee the line-out, and his lack of consistency made him a point of contention with, once again, a big crowd.

The visitors, with ambitions of rejoining the hierarchy, have recruited strongly, now boasting 14 ex-Northampton players, ten of whom were on the team sheet, plus the experienced Junior Paramore, pretty much a regular for Gloucester last season and probably their best signing, No 6 Nic Strauss, who was outstanding.

They did not really need the help, freely given, to record a 23 seconds try when they gathered their own kick-off on the home 22 and spun it out to centre Ben Whetstone who was allowed an uninterrupted run to the posts. Full back Leigh Hinton duly started his 100 per cent kicking display five minutes later landing a penalty awarded for entering the maul from the side.

The home pack, with Ian Carroll a welcome visitor, began to up their work rate and drove into the home 22, gaining a penalty which went into the corner where No 8 Ed Thorpe took the tap down and went down the blind side to get over only for Mr Debney to indicate crossing!

A break down the middle by scrum-half Ian Vass opened Otley's defence but centre Allen was pulled down when he should have passed and in the melee Chris Johnson and Mark Luffman, neither of them shrinking violets, found themselves in the cooler.

Hinton kicked the penalty but Otley at last stretched Bedford when Shuttleworth came into the line only for the ball to be knocked on but pressure was maintained and Simon Binns came away with a penalty goal.

A knock-on in the home 22 gave Bedford a scrum in midfield and they worked in an overlap, Allen crossing at the corner. It was left to Binns to add a second penalty just before the break but he was wide with another on resumption after excellent approach work by the pack.

The referee removed props Justin Wring and Matt Stewart for ten minutes and apparently ran out of patience when half-time replacement Glen Wilson, making his debut and never having received a card throughout his career at Wakefield, was shown red for a retaliatory slap 16 minutes after coming on.

Poor handling by the home centres when in possession on their 22 gave Allen a simple run to the line to take Bedford out of sight.

With almost 20 minutes playing time remaining they found Otley's resolute defence denying them their fourth try until, with two minutes to go, Jason Oakes moved off side when the pack were defending a drive following a five metre line-out.

Out came the well-worn yellow card and now two short Otley failed to stop Vass creeping over.