Rare home defeat for Bedford Blues as Nottingham shake up play-offs chase
Bedford Blues dropped to third in the race for the Champ Rugby top six after suffering a rare home loss, paying for an error strewn performance in a 14-10 defeat to Nottingham on Saturday.
A first victory at Goldington Road for the Archers since November 2016, it continued the dramatic race for the Top Six, Nottingham in eighth with Blues one of only two in the play-offs to lose.
Director of Rugby Mike Rayer said: “We’ve only got ourselves to blame really.
“We made too many handling errors and let too many chances get away from us.
“There’ll be sides looking at this result and rubbing their hands thinking we’re there to be taken – it’s up to us to rise to that challenge.”
Blues had lost just two of their previous 21 games on home soil in the league, but never really looked like winning this one with error after error being compounded by a resolute defensive effort from Nottingham.
Rayer's men drop to third, just one behind Worcester and only two in front of Coventry and need to find a much improved performance if they are to get a home game in the post-season.
But Blues can control their own destiny, playing the top two away and others in the play-off places at home before the end of the season.
In this fixture last season Bedford racked up 12 tries in a rampant performance, and Nottingham feared history could be repeating itself when Dean Adamson opened the scoring for the hosts inside two minutes, Michael Le Bourgeois converting.
After Nottingham drew level, Le Bourgeois's penalty put Bedford back ahead in the second half but they were eventually sunk by the Archers.
Ampthill head coach Dave Ward was delighted with his team’s performance after watching the Mob overcome high-flying Hartpury 32-27 at the 4Ed Stadium.
“It’s incredible, they’ve only lost once here this season and that was against Ealing and we knew what a tough test this would be,” he said.
“We prepared well for this game, the guys were tremendous with their attitude and the fact we got the result is a credit to the players’ efforts tonight.”
Oscar Wilson and Sione Va’enuku scored two tries each with one for Charlie West and two conversions and a penalty for Luke Davidson.