Bedians take the spoils in the Didsbury Derby

Another week, another Didsbury derby against Toc H. This time it was the 2nd XV's opportunity to retain pride of the village against Toc 3rd XV and the boys did not disappoint.

With some feisty open play and barraging of the Toc defence Bedians scored in the corner with Sean O'Brien crashing in on the wing following some unselfish interplay. Conversion narrowly missed, 5-0 with barely 5 mins played.

Toc H replied 10 mins later to go 7-5 up after strong running and a ruck turnover.
Bedians were then struck down by an injury to hard running centre Sean O'Brien, he was replaced by debutant Alex Diaconu who like Sean was a thorn in the side of the opposition with strong direct running and solid defence.

The reply from Bedians was another try from second generation Bede Chris Knight to make it 10-7 and the Didsbury Derby was living up to hype.

With 35 mins on the clock, Toc's flanker was sinbinned for blatant foul play in the ruck on his own 5m. After an unsuccessful appeal he finally left the pitch and Didsbury Old Bedians capitalised on the advantage. Bedians Irish centre Morgan Reidy made one of his trademark jinxing runs to bamboozle the defence and run under the posts, converted by Jim Bloor making it 17-7 at half time.

Not long into the second half Toc pounced again and another converted try kept them on the heels to make it 17-14.
The next try was going to be decisive and Morgan popped up again to score in the corner making it 22-14 with Bedes in the ascendancy.

Try of the day has to go to Harri Riddick whose hard running off the 10 got him past the gain line and indeed 4 flailing defenders, one of whom he sidestepped to run in a try from the 22. Converted by Bloor to make it 29-21 with 5 mins to go.

In the final play of the match Bedians gave away a penalty under the posts but with 8 points the difference, Toc opted to take the 3 points and walk away with a bonus point loss.
Both sides should be commended for what was a brilliant game of rugby, both teams threw the kitchen sink at the win.

MoM awards went to centre Morgan Reidy and a subsequent vote for flanker Josh Earle.
Toc's MoM went to their number 8 and a subsequent vote for their 9.