Blues’ yellow fever sets up Reds first win of the season

A DOMINANT display by the Jersey forwards saw the islanders end their nine-game winless drought in style against ill-disciplined Bedford.

A late try by Bathloanee Darren Atkins completed the win for Reds’ first league points of the season.

Reds director of rugby Harvey Biljon said: “We always have a battle at Bedford and today was no different. We’re happy, we worked really hard after a great training week and it paid off.

“Credit to Bedford, down by two players in the second-half, it was pretty heroic defence by them, they made us work hard for our scores.”

Jersey – fired up after back-to-back defeats to Saracens and Richmond – were deep in Bedford’s territory from kick-off and unlucky to not score from a driving maul.

Brendan Cope opened the scoring after Jersey showed their scrum advantage. Blues loosehead Joe Wrafter was sin-binned on 20 minutes for killing the ball and Reds capitalised, tighthead Ciaran Parker dotting down from another catch-and-drive.

Despite being on the back foot, Bedford flyhalf Tommy Mathews levelled before Blues took the lead when centre Reuben Bird-Tulloch broke from deep, split the defence and offloaded perfectly for Ryan Olowofela to skip past Jack Roberts and score under the posts.

Bedford extended the lead to 17-10 after neat link-up play by No.9 Ewan Fenley and wing Matt Worley, whose welltimed pass took out the last defender for skipper Rich Lane to slide in.

Jersey retook the lead, hooker Jack Macfarlane scoring off a catch-anddrive before Cope made Blues pay for not rolling away just before the break.

Jersey threw everything at Bedford in the second-half but it wasn’t until tighthead Ed Prowse, and replacement Rob Hardwick two minutes later, were both sin-binned for repeated infringments at the scrum that Reds were able to extend their lead when Cope freed Atkins to power in to score.

Bedford coach Alex Reay said: “We’re frustrated, we wanted to play with energy but Jersey looked to focus on the set-piece and our flow suffered.

“Maybe I’m one-eyed, but it felt like we were on the wrong side of some of the 50-50 scrum decisions, the ref just presumed when he shouldn’t.”