London Welsh kicked off but it was Bedford that soon took the territorial advantage with a series of moves that edged them up to the Welsh 22 metre line. Their efforts were cancelled out when the home side were awarded a penalty for a line-out offence and Aled Thomas’ kick took play deep into Bedford’s half. Another line-out led to another penalty against Bedford, this time within range of the posts. Aled Thomas took the kick and Welsh were 3-0 ahead.

At the start of the game it had been 349 minutes since Bedford last conceded a try but, if the scoreboard clock was correct, it took London Welsh just 19 minutes to breach the Blues’ defence. A Bedford clearance kick bounced off a Welsh player and Tom Brown passed to Paul Sampson. The wing still had plenty to do but used his pace to track across field beating three Bedford defenders on the way to touch down next to the posts. With a simple conversion by Thomas, Welsh extended their lead to 10 points.

Bedford took every opportunity to attack the London Welsh try line and within a couple of minutes they too had scored. Fielden showed that he has power as well as pace when he drove across the line taking three of the London Welsh players with him as they tried to bring him to ground.  Dorrian converted and the score was 10-7.

Tom Brown thought he had scored the next try but the touch judge spotted a knock-on and Bedford were awarded a scrum. Errie Claassens was successful though, scoring the first of his two tries, when he gathered the ball from a loose pass. A run down the touch line, a long kick and chase and a final nudge with his foot to tap the ball over the line allowed him to dive in and score. The newly shortened dead ball area nearly prevented the try and caused a few anxious moments for the London Welsh supporters. Thomas’ conversion took the score to 17-7 and so it remained at half time.

A kick at goal by Dorrian opened the second half scoring when Welsh failed to retreat the required 10 metres when Bedford took a quick tap penalty. The home side’s lead quickly returned to a 10 point margin when Bedford were adjudged to have collapsed a scrum. The penalty was straight in front of the posts and Thomas took the simple three points.

Tom Brown broke through the Bedford defence to run half the length of the field and when he was finally stopped the tackling player failed to roll away. The penalty was kicked by Aled Thomas  for another three points.  Claassens’ second try followed courtesy of a break by Dominic Shabbo. Bedford were in possession of the ball when the London Welsh pack turned it over and quickly made it available to the backs. Shabbo took the ball into Bedford’s 22 and passed to Claassens for the try. The conversion was missed and Welsh led 28-10.

Sustained Bedford attacks put the Welsh defence under pressure again but it wasn’t until centre Simon Whatling was shown the yellow card for failing to roll away from the tackle that the Blues scored. With 15 minutes of play remaining Fielden immediately exploited their one-player advantage to touch down in the corner. Dorrian added the tricky conversion for the final 28-17 score line.

The final quarter of an hour saw Bedford continue their attacks in search of a consolation bonus point but the Welsh defence remained too strong. Welsh had two further opportunities, the first when Neil Starling broke clear but a tap-tackle stopped his run and then from a scrum after Gordon Ross produced a perfectly weighted kick that was carried into touch by the Bedford winger.

For the first time this season London Welsh played well, both in attack and defence, for the entire 80 minutes and it was a significant improvement on the performance at Rotherham the previous week. The team and supporters will travel to Exeter next Saturday confident that they can record a win at Sandy Park.

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