Ashton 18 - 15 Old Bedians

Old Bedians travelled to Ashton hoping to get their second win in two weeks and started the game brightly against the mid-table Tamesiders. With the breeze at their backs and playing downhill Bedes played all of the rugby early on and spent almost all of the first 30 minutes in their opponent's territory. After 8 minutes fly-half Gallagher fed Vince Betty who bust through two would be tacklers and set up the most entertaining few seconds (or minutes?) of the game... As Betty looked to 'go through the gears' and race away to the try line, Ashton's middle aged and slightly rotund prop forward began to give chase. It was a foot race of epic proportions and the Ashton man looked odds-on to bring 'Pie Thighs' down throughout. Only after the chaser's despairing dive made minimal contact with Betty's ankles did he relax and touch the ball down. The 40 metre 'sprint' was unofficially timed at 5 minutes and 37 seconds but it felt longer at the time. Captain Prytherch struck his simple conversion attempt as well as he usually does, 0-5. Bedians continued to pressure Ashton and a period of forward pressure gave scrum-half Prytherch the chance to dummy and dart over the try line from close range. Even more surprising than the rare try by the skipper was the quality of his conversion from 5 metres away from the right touchline, 0-12. Bedians stayed in control and their forwards were dominating the home side, John Tamagna, Jack O'shea and Chris Hetherington working their socks off around the park, a couple of big carries from O'shea and Matthew Keeling were also very pleasing and showed the increasing confidence in what is probably the youngest pack in the league. As a result of this dominance Ashton had to concede penalties to stop Bedes adding to the try count, two such penalties resulted in yellow cards and the second allowed a shot at goal. Gaz Prytherch used every inch of the target to send the ball over via the left upright and give Bedes a healthy 15-0 lead. What followed was a very poor 10 minutes by the Didsbury side, chances went begging due to panicking under pressure and then they allowed the 13-man Ashton side to score after a series of driving mauls. Half-Time 5-15.
The second half saw Bedians under pressure almost throughout, a combination of constantly being penalised for offside (some of which were harsh but many were due to Bedes not being disciplined enough to listen to the ref's instructions of where he deemed the offside line to be) and good tactical kicking from Ashton saw Bedes rarely venture out of their own half. The home side scored a converted try after a period of pressurising the Bedians' line and when this was followed by a penalty the scores were level at 15 all. After Rob Renshaw was sin-binned for an offside offence (extremely harsh on 'mini' who was simply up quickly on the Ashton centre) Bedes were forced to tackle, tackle and tackle some more. As in recent weeks the defence stood firm, the whole squad is showing great honsety and bravery in defence at the moment, surely qualities that will serve them well in the weeks to come as they fight to avoid relegation. One huge hit from Si Jude that took the wind out of his much bigger opposite number was a highlight of this period. After a serious looking neck injury to Vince Betty that was thankfully nowhere near as bad as it could have been an ambulance was called and the final 8 minutes was played on the adjoining pitch that is approximately a quarter of the size of the 1st team pitch. Amid much confusion and with Bedes down to 14 men Ashton were awarded a rather harsh penalty on the halway line (about 15 yards out)and their fly half kept his cool to convert it and win the game for Ashton. Full-Time 18-15.
All in all, a good performance from Bedes fell short because they only scored twice in the 1st half when the slope and wind advantage equated to three tries. A dissapointed Bedians team must now keep their chins up and keep playing with the spirit they have been showing of late with some crunch fixtures in the next few weeks.