Bedford Tigers 42 St Ives Roosters 10

Co-operative Rugby League Conference - Eastern Division

Saturday 19th May 2007

Bedford Tigers 42 St Ives Roosters 10

St Ives Roosters first away game of the season ended in a disappointing defeat at the hands of Bedford Tigers.

The Roosters went into the fixture confident of causing an upset after winning their opening two games of the season. Their preparations were hampered with the unavailability of three players and the loss of James Shearman who failed a late fitness test.

New signing Marco Rossi came into the side and was influential as the Roosters opened the scoring after seven minutes. Rossi drove the ball towards the line which allowed Andrew Dean to cross and score from the play the ball.

The Roosters were given an early warning a couple of minutes later when Bedford broke through in the Roosters 20 metre area only to knock on close to the line. They did reduce the arrears three minutes later from a penalty goal. This was to set the tone for the rest of the half with the referee punishing the Roosters at every opportunity with penalties but ignoring the same offences when they were committed by Bedford.

This led to the Roosters having to defend for the last twenty minutes of the half as the Tigers piled on the pressure. They eventually broke through to score a converted try before quickly adding a second to extend their lead to 14 - 4. The Roosters were not helped with the loss of Michael Cade with a leg injury which put him out for the rest of the game.

Two more tries by Bedford, one of which included a blatant forward pass ended the first half scoring with the Roosters trailing 24-4.

Poor play at the start of the second half allowed Bedford to score in the first minute. This was a harsh try to concede as the build up to this try included another forward pass. David Sykes was then sin binned for an innocuous challenge and things got worse as they also lost Dan Fry to an ankle injury.

A tiring Roosters were made to suffer another refereeing error which allowed Bedford to score again. On the 5th tackle the ball was kicked at a Roosters player which rebounded to a Tigers player who was immediately tackled. The ball should have been passed over to the Roosters but the referee deemed that a Roosters player had played at the ball. This allowed the Tigers another set of six which the duly scored from. This increased the Tigers lead to 34 - 4.

The Roosters finally hit back with a well worked blindside move which led to Andrew Dean passing the ball to Duncan Potts who crashed over the line. Michael Sykes successfully adding the conversion.

Bedford scored the final try of the game to make the final score 42 - 10.

Roosters Assistant Coach, Ray Marshall, commented "It was a disappointing display by the players who know they can play much better. Our performance was not helped by an inconsistent referee but at the end of the day we were beaten by a better side."