Preview -v- Bedford

By Elliott Josypenko
November 19 2004
After last weeks nightmare loss to newboys Nottingham, Director of Rugby Phil Maynard will be looking to change things around in the Bees camp. Out are Lenny Woodard and Gavin Pfister who was sold to Celtic League side Ulster.

Bedford Blues -v- Pertemps Bees

20/11/2004 3PM

Goldington Road, Bedford

Pertemps Bees	Position	Bedford
Matt Long	1
Matt Miles	2
Martin O'Keefe	3
Ben Hughes	4
Ed Orgee	5
Hese Fakatou	6
Tom Jordan	7
Duncan White	8
Paul Knight	9
Tim Walsh	10
Aaron Takarangi	11
Mike Davies	12
Shaun Woof	13
Roman Piotrowski	14
Dave Knight	15
Jim Thorp	16
Rob Merritt	17
Dan Zaltzman	18
Rob Hurrell	19
Mark Woodrow	20
Tom Richardson	21
Scott Williams-G	22

After last weeks nightmare loss to newboys Nottingham, Director of Rugby Phil Maynard will be looking to change things around in the Bees camp. Out are Lenny Woodard and Gavin Pfister who was sold to Celtic League side Ulster. “I was very disappointed with the overall team performance on Saturday.”

Returning for the Bees will be Shaun Woof and Martin the Magic O’Keefe who were caught on the M6 last Saturday.

Ben Hughes will be given his first start for the Bees after impressing over the past few weeks. “Ben did well when he came on and he has certainly had a good start to his career at Sharmans Cross”.

Sharmans Cross favourite Tom Jordan has been removed from his loan spell at National 2 side Stourbridge due to the loss of Gavin Pfister, Jim Jenner (neck) and Nathan Carter (neck), who will both be missing again for the Bees.

Matt Long will also be hoping to return for the Bees following a recovery from his horrendous facial injury and fellow prop Emyr Lewis will be missing with a rib cartilage injury.

The backs will also be struggling due to the loss of superstar winger Nick Baxter who still has a thigh problem.

Bedford will be hoping to cause an upset when the Bees visit Goldington Road. Both sides have had bad results recently with Bees losing to Nottingham, Bristol and Rotherham, and Bedford losing to Plymouth Albion and Penzance & Newlyn.

Bedford Squad: Allen, Matt (capt) Ball, James Bester, Werner Binham, Ed Brady, Shaun Brenton, Arthur Graham, James Hepher, Ali Hinkins, James Hinton, Leigh Johnson, Chris Lewitt, Ben Malone, Dominic Moir, Craig Mrdjenovich, Milan Orugboh, Andy Paramore, Junior Phillips, Andy Ross, Joe Staten, Mike Stewart, Matt Volland, Vass, Ian Whetstone, Ben .

Steve McCormack’s Preview:

Two teams coming off the back of defeats and dropping down the table meet at Goldington Road on Saturday.

Bedford put up a good fight before going down by 10 points at Plymouth Albion on Saturday. They have only played three league matches at home this season, all against teams in the bottom four, and have yet to lose. They have only conceded four tries in the three matches. They have now dropped to ninth in the division and this is their toughest test on home soil this season.

Pertemps Bees lost their unbeaten home record when they were surprisingly turned over by Nottingham on Saturday. Amazingly, the Bees, who had scored 30 tries this season, could only breach the Nottingham defence once, and this is the team which had conceded 45 tries prior to Saturday, the worst in the league by some margin. Additionally, Nottingham scored three tries at Sharmans Cross Road, where this season, Otley, Penzance and Plymouth only managed to score two between them. The Bees slipped to fifth in the league after this defeat and will be looking to redeem themselves as they aim to improve an away return of three wins from five games.

Bedford have only lost one of the last five meetings between the sides and have won the last three at Goldington Road. This is expected to be close on Saturday and home advantage may give Bedford another victory.

Steve's Prediction: Bedford by five

My prediction: Bedford 16-22 Bees

League Form Guide:

Pertemps Bees: wwlwl

Bedford: wwlwl

Comparisons: