Worley shows his wheels as Cooper puts squeeze on

By MARK WOOD

FREE-SCORINGBedford Blues blew away Nottingham as Storm Hannah battered Goldington Road on Saturday.

Victory secured the Blues back-to-back third place Championship finishes as departing prop Ben Cooper, returning to boyhood club Bury St Edmunds, helped his pack pummel the visitors.

He said: “It’s a lovely way to sign off, especially to get a couple of penalty tries as a tighthead it’s nice to finish with them.

It’s nice to get a big win, finish third again, that’s exactly what we want and push on for next season hopefully.”

The difficult wind saw Shane O’Leary miss a penalty on four minutes, but was on target with his second attempt.

Sean Scanlon was sinbinned for a deliberate knock-on and Bedford finally made their superiority pay on 23 minutes with a penalty try at scrum time.

Rising star Ryan Hutler underlined his promise with another sensational score as he hurtled most of the field to touch down on 27 minutes, with Will Hooley adding the easy extras.

Nottingham replied immediately when a mistake allowed David Williams to surge down the left and score in the corner.

The Green and Whites then almost snatched the lead on the stroke of half time when Scanlon scampered through the centre but his pass to Harry Graham went forward.

Bedford continued to dominate up front in the second half and after forcing a penalty off a Nottingham scrum, they claimed a second penalty try from another five minutes in to move 21-8 ahead. A succession of lineouts and penalties on the Bedford line led to Josh Buggea’s sin-binning, but the Blues survived.

Bedford proceeded to control the game as a great Matt Worley burst saw him surge clear to score on 57 minutes, before hooker Charlie Clare was driven over from a catch-and-drive move eight minutes later. Hooley converted the first and Bedford led 33-8.

The irrepressible Worley grabbed his second with six minutes to go after he kicked through, while a quicklytaken penalty allowed Murray McConnell to snipe over four minutes later.

Former Blue Darryl Veenendaal lamented: “If you are not on your money mentally and physically, little cracks will get shown up and that happened today.”

TEAMS

BLUES: Lane 7 (Coulson 73 5), Hutler 8 (Tapley 66, 6), Worley 9, Robling 7, Adamson 7, Hooley 8, Gliksten 8, McCarthy 9 (c) (King 75, 5), Clare 7 (Fields 66, 6), Cooper 8 (Penny 55, 6), Ed Taylor 7 (Oli Curry 57, 6), Flanagan 8, Worthington 8, Buggea 7 (Blanchet 63, 6), Williams 8

NOTTINGHAM: Scanlon 6, Spittle 6 (Graham 37-41, 5), Robinson 5, Luke Peters 5, David Williams 6 (Graham 74 5), O’Leary 5, Veenendaal 6 (McConnell 58, 6), Aniseko Sio 5, Cole 6 (Brownlie 53, 5), Heffernan 5 (Jack 13, 5), Holmes (c) 6, Jones 6 (Cox 66, 5), Buckley 6 (Cecil 58, 5), Owen6, Coghlan 6 (Poullet 58, 5)

REFEREE: Greg MacDonald

ATTENDANCE: 2,872

Star man

Matt Worley – Bedford