Flyer Hutler haunts old Blues mates with hat-trick

RYAN Hutler haunted his former club once again as Coventry made it seven wins on the spin with a dominant performance on home soil.

The winger ran in a hattrick, part of eight Coventry tries, as they ran away with proceedings in the second half to turn a 12-12 stalemate into a comfortable scoreline.

Coventry boss Alex Rae said: “Ryan hasn’t scored for a few weeks, but we had a joke in the week that he’d score a few and he’s worked really hard for them. He was brilliant, a few poacher’s tries and a brilliant finish too.

“First half I didn’t feel we were clinical, but our kicking game squeezed Bedford in the second half, which was part of the game plan. The boys executed that really well and waited for the opportunities to counter.”

Bedford started the brighter but shot themselves in the foot for the first Coventry score as they tried to play from their own goal line, allowing Hutler to pick it off and start the scoring.

The lively Tom Ball grabbed the second before Bedford fought back to level things up at the break thanks to a smart finish from fly-half Louis Grimoldby and a sniper’s try from Joey Conway.

It looked all set for an intriguing final 40 minutes but Coventry completely blitzed their visitors by running in 28 points within a frantic 17 minute spell to take the game away.

Bedford were the architects of their own downfall as they stuck to their traditional DNA which looks ever so effective when it works, but can cause massive problems when it goes wrong.

Coventry scrum-half Will Chudley, who announced this week he is

retiring at the end of the season, was a constant threat and Tonga fly-half Patrick Pellegrini ran through the heart of the defence to begin the procession before second row Obinna Nkwocha got himself in on the act.

Hutler completed his hat-trick to make it 40-12, before his fellow winger James Martin cut a mazy run from inside his own half, brushing off defenders at will to score.

A breakaway try from James Lennon gave Bedford hope of at least snatching a try bonus point, but they were back to making mistakes shortly after with another knock on inside their own 22m which allowed Will Wand to capitalise and complete the scoring.

Bedford captain Alex Day said: “We were our own worst enemy, no excuses. We’ll have to dust ourselves down because we’ll need to be all guns blazing in the final three games to remain inside the top four.”