Midlands 1 West

Worcester Wanderers 36 v Bedworth 14

Bedworth travelled to Worcester to face a Wanderers side who had beaten Bedworth on all meetings. Wanderers kicked off and Bedworth soon put the hosts under pressure with some good forward surges and fly half Alan Foster kicking long to pin Wanderers in their own half. Bedworth had great field position but failed to execute their set piece effectivly and Wanderers fed off Bedworth errors to relieve the early pressure.

Wanderers soon had their first try of the game and again it came from a Bedworth error. The Bedworth lineout dropped to a Wanderers player who carried strong and eventually led to their second row bundling his way over the line. The conversion was landed and Wanderers had an early lead. Bedworth came back and got their first points of the afternoon with Alan Foster landing a simple penalty. Foster followed this up with a long range effort to bring the visitors back into contention at7-6.

Bedworth conceded two soft tries before half time when twice the men in green and white were reduced to 14 men. Firstly Matty Randall was sent to the sin bin and he was followed on the stroke of half time by captain Carl Southwell. Wanderers applied the pressure and soon their outside centre made a lovely break before feeding the inside centre to go over under the posts. The Wanderers fly half extended their lead when he sold a dummy before gliding in under the posts. Both tries were converted.

Bedworth felt that the official for the afternoon did not get a grip on the game and when Wanderers were penalised for similar offences he failed to impose the same puinshment and they remained with a full fifeteen players on the field for the first half. Foster gave Bedworth some hope with a well struck penalty on the stroke of half time.

Half Time

Worcester Wanderers 22 v Bedworth 9

The second half was a physical affair with Bedworth chasing the game and Wanderers looking to finish the game early on. It was the Wanderers who applied themselves better at the start of the second half with two well worked converted scores.

Firstly a break from the Wanderers winger saw him feed back inside to the supporting back row player who went in unopposed under the posts and this was followed by their inside centre scoring his second when he was in support to finish off a well worked try.

The closing stages of the game belonged to Bedworth as they battered away at the Worcester defence. Eventually they were rewarded when Mitchell Smith dived over the line out wide to score his maiden first team try since arriving from South Africa. Bedworth continued to have promising passages of play but failed to score any further points.

The game finished with a mass brawl and this was mainly down to the fact that the referee had failed to get a grip on the game. This resulted in the referee sending two Wanderers players to the sin bin and this resulted in a total of six yellow cards for the afternoon three for each team and this was a dissapointing reflection on an excellent entertaining game of rugby from both sides.

Final Score

Worcester Wanderers 36 v Bedworth 14