Fenner wins it for Cov with last-gasp penalty
COVENTRY BEDFORD 10 9
TONY Fenner’s last minute kick sealed a dramatic late win for Coventry over Bedford Blues on their return to Championship action after a twelve-month wait.
The second half substitute steppedup with the clock in the red to edge out the visitors who played half an hour with 14 men after being given three yellow cards.
There had been little to separate the teams throughout this slowburner of a contest in which both sides looked rusty on their return to league action.
But match-winner Fenner refused to blame the first half showing on a lack of competitive playing time.
He said: “I don’t know where that first half came from, I don’t think either team will be happy with that performance.
“The set-piece was messy so I’m glad we managed to pull it out of the bag. We’ve had three games so we should be better and we’ve been training for a long time.
“As subs we knew we had to come and bring a bit of energy, that was our job and I think we did that. Our cleanout was better in the second half and there were more positives but still a lot of errors.”
Before the substitute’s intervention it had looked as though former Coventry man Will Maisey had sealed the win for Bedford with a penalty of his own with two minutes remaining.
The 3-0 half time scoreline told the story of a lack of penetration and cohesive attacking play in the opening period but the contest did improve slightly in the second.
Tommy Mathews had kicked Bedford into a 6-0 lead after 44 minutes but Coventry responded well and began to enjoy the lion’s share of possession and territory.
The pressure told as the Blues were guilty of repeated infringements, resulting in yellow cards for Connor Tupai, Lewis Bean and Will Carricksmith.
Nic Dolly grabbed the only try of the contest in the 53rd minute as he powered over from the base of a catch and drive maul. Kieran Wilkinson added the extras to give Coventry the lead for the first time.
After Maisey had given Bedford a late lead, there was still time for more indiscipline from the visitors and a string of penalties eventually ended up with Fenner sealing the victory in added time.
He admitted to feeling some nerves before the kick as a minor injury had made practicing goal-kicking difficult.
“We asked the ref how long and he said ten seconds and I think it was just time to step up and see if we could get the win,” he explained.
“There’s always nerves and I haven’t done that much practice lately because I’ve got a groin problem that doesn’t allow me to do much goal-kicking so I’m just glad it went over.”
Bedford had shown plenty of bright moments and twice went close to scoring first-half tries, being held up over the line on one occasion and scrum-half Tupai spilling the ball as he went to ground the ball on another.
Brown; Stevenson, Forsyth, Owen, Knox (James 78); Wilkinson (Fenner 66), Snow (White 54); Trinder (Jeannot 54), Dolly, Harper (Boulton 54); Dacres (Jordan 71), Peters (Woolford 3), Lewis, Nutley, Burrows.
Try: Dolly (53). Con: Wilkinson (53) Pen: Fenner (80).
Lane; Tapley, Niko,bird-tulloch, Olowofela (Worley 54); Mathews (Maisey 59), Tupai (Lennon 54); Wrafter (Mccarthy 53), Fish (Fields 66), Barrett (Prowse 11); Bean, Carricksmith, Atkinson, Newman (Robinson 50), Uru 7 (Iyogun 66).
Pens: Mathews (22) (44); Maisey (78). Hamish Smales.