Battle of Bedfordshire

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I’m hoping for a win but am always a little concerned when we play Ampthill. I think it will depend on the team selection and whether we get key players available like Woolford, Conway and Fred.

Forecasting the outcome of games against Ampthill is always a risky business.

Ampthill will be pleased about the performance against WW and will be looking for a good performance against the Blues

The weekends fixtures have all the hallmarks of a few upsets let's hope we are not one of them.

I suspect this won’t be one for the purists, and conditions (and rivalries) will play a major factor.
A chilly wind gusting 30mph out of the NNW will play havoc with kicking both from hand and at goal.
A bit simplistic, but the side that makes the least errors (handling, l/o throws etc) will probably come away with the spoils in a low scoring encounter (queue 60point running rugby try-fest).

Bedford Blues Starting XV:

15. Louis James, 14. Ryan Hutler, 13. Lucas Titherington, 12. Michael Le Bourgeois (C), 11. Dean Adamson, 10. Will Maisey, 9. James Lennon; 1. Joey Conway, 2. James Fish, 3. Oisin Heffernan, 4. Archie Benson, 5. Rory Ward, 6. Fyn Brown, 7. Nicholas Finch, 8. Tui Uru

Bedford Blues Replacements:

16. Tommy Herman, 17. Ollie Scola, 18. Monty Royston, 19. Ilan Evans, 20. Fred Tuilagi, 21. Kayde Sylvester, 22. Alex Day, 23. George Worth

Unavailable for selection this week:

Alex Woolford, Archie Hosking, Rafe Witheat, Tom Price

Surprised Sylvester goes to the bench. The team is otherwise as expected with the players injured.

Just saw Day is benched too,



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:10:24:13:59:22 by TryBlues.

The 6/2 bench split indicates they are expecting a forward battle but I’m not sure our replacement front row looks too strong.

Odd calls to leave Fred on the bench and drop Sylvester after his performance last week. Worth also had a good game last week but think we’ve been rotating between the 3 centres each week.

I thought Day was pretty poor last week and think Lennon deserves a start.

Maisey will need to do the 80 with no Price, which he basically did all of last season. But no real fly half cover, assume Booj plays there in an emergency.

10 Sarries in the Ampthill lineup. Not sure what loophole they are using to get round that as I thought it was meant to be capped at 6 this year. Adejemi always plays well against us. Louis Johnson at fly half and Brandon Jackson on the wing are both prem quality players. The other danger men are the scrum half Jones, who was excellent against us in pre season and apparently has been playing well so far, and the full back Barton. Given the Sarries contingent I think Ampthill are probably narrow favourites.

Great result for the Blues and my prediction of a tight game was so far off the mark that I’ll give up making predictions!! Ampthill very disorganised- maybe due to suddenly influx of Sarries??

Blues were very good and it was noticeable that they didn’t kick as much, keeping the ball in hand more and didn’t make many errors. Ampthill dropped it a lot in the first half under Blues pressure.

A similar thing happened last year where when we played the Ampthill players the game was a lot harder than when they had the Saracens players.

Jackson scored a good solo try for them. A lot of the Blues tries were special.

Has Hutler lost a bit of pace, or were those Ampthill player super quick. He still scored some good tries.

Tough game next week against Doncaster, but we may benefit with them having had a more physical battle against Worcester.

Quote:

LifeInABlueSuit
I suspect this won’t be one for the purists, and conditions (and rivalries) will play a major factor.
A chilly wind gusting 30mph out of the NNW will play havoc with kicking both from hand and at goal.
A bit simplistic, but the side that makes the least errors (handling, l/o throws etc) will probably come away with the spoils in a low scoring encounter (queue 60point running rugby try-fest).

Hmm, that stood up well…. (The last bit in brackets perhaps so…)
Bedford were very good today across the board: special mention to the lineout (atk & def) and line speed.

Very good performance, looked so much better in attack. Still fell off a few tackles but scramble defense was good.

Feel like Lennon has to keep his place. 3 assists and a try and I think his speed of service was much better than Day’s has been which is partly why our attack was so potent. I wouldn’t be surprised if we revert to Day for Doncaster though.

Thought Fish and Benson were also both excellent. Sylvester made an impact yet again and has to start next week. Although with it being prem cup we may not have many/any saints players so that may force our hand. Ideally, the only changes I’d make would be to start Fred and Sylvester. Don’t think Finch had the best game, slipped off a few tackles. Would be a blow if we lose Benson as the Ward Benson 2nd row partnership is really starting to gel.

Huge game against Doncaster next week. If we win that, I think we can consign the poor start to the past and kick on for the rest of the season. Doncaster will be thinking the same thing, especially off the back of a dramatic win against Worcester (where they looked excellent). Hopefully that game has taken it out of them. The way the fixtures work means we always play teams after they’ve played Worcester, which may be a slight benefit as that’s a game most teams will target.

Thought this was an interesting feature from Blues. I think this is first season they’ve had the GPS trackers. Shows the work rate of Titherington.

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