Garstang 13 - 24 Old Bedians

Old Bedians produced another solid display that defied their league position and made them convincing winners away to Garstang. Garstang, as expected, played a very direct game, using their big forwards in an attempt to grind down Bedes, this looked like it might be effective in the early exchanges but once Bedians' got into their stride there was only going to be one winner. After a 10 minute period of play around the halfway line with Bedians' superb tackling withstanding everything the Lancastrians threw at them, the deadlock was broken by Mike Gallagher. Having already used his ever-willing centres Alkhalaf and Betty the crash the ball in, this time 'Aussie' dummied both inside options and waltzed Matilda-esque through the gap he'd created to score under the posts. Even skipper Gaz Prytherch couldn't miss the conversion, 0-7. Shortly afterwards Bedians' pack got a rolling maul going forwards and after making 20 yards and sucking in numerous Garstang defenders made the ball available for scrum-half Prytherch. Winger Rob Renshaw had worked out that his opposite number was very attracted to him, anywhere 'Mini' went so did his admirer. As Renshaw moved into the cntre of the field, followed by his new friend, Gallagher took his place on the blindside and had the simple task of gathering Prytherch's pass and diving over in the corner for his second try of the game. Needless to say the conversion didn't threaten the uprights, 0-12. Bedians' continued to pressure the home side and forced a penalty 35 yards out that Gaz P missed to the left of the posts, this pressure also told when in an attempt to slow down the marauding Bedes' pack, Garstang's second row was sin-binned. Unlike last week's poor display when they had a numerical advantage the only points Bedes' conceded during this period was a penalty just after half-time 3-12.
By this point the confidence levels were getting higher and higher and Bedians' forwards were dominating the tight exchanges, the commitment and composure shown by Carroll, Keeling, Wall and O'Shea was superb, this combined with the fierce defence of Bannell, Jude, Dawson and Hetherington showed a pack of forwards that are starting to gel as a unit. A superb example of this dominance resulted in the next score. From a lineout 20 yards out Bannell found Dawson and a rolling maul began that finished over the Garstang try line with a shocked Steve Bannell clinging to the ball. Bannell's shock was also evident amongst the rest of the squad, Steve has a history of bombing even the simplest of try scoring opportunities (see the earlier match reports for games against Bury and Birchfield), obviously receiving a pass is too complex for him but place the ball in his hands two yards out and the boy is deadly. 3-17. Bedians' next and final try was a superb individual effort from Vince 'Lazarus' Betty, less than 7 days earlier Vince was lying flat on his back for hours in a hospital ward, as his tears flowed his rugby career looked in tatters, how would he ever come back from this near fatal neck injury? As it turned out there was absolutely nothing wrong with his neck and his hospital visit was simply a result of his poor fitness level... Taking a switch pass from Gallagher, Betty powered through and side-stepped past at least 6 defenders on his way to the try line to put Bedes 22-3 up, Gallagher cooly slotted the conversion, 3-24.
Garstang then showed what they are all about, their big pack pinning Bedians' back for the final 15 minutes and whilst Bedians had 2 players in the sin-bin they scored two consolation trys, something which you tend to find happens a lot in our league!!
All in all this was Bedians best performance of the season but they know they will have to reproduce a similar display next week if they are to beat Garstang in the return fixture as late in the game they showed us what they were capable of.