South shut out Bedford Ath

A bitterly cold Putnoe Woods greeted South on their latest away day trip to Bedford Athletic. A strong easterly wind blowing all the way from the Urals threatened to dictate a "game of two halves" scenario, but South had other ideas.
Forced through injury to replace both lock forwards South brought in John Hemsley and Ben Antill, lost the toss and were forced to play with the wind in the first half.

Ath started the brighter team forcing South onto the back foot for the opening exchanges. South were slow to get to grips with the game with some poor decision making and wayward passing being the order of the day. Mark Lord missed a penalty in the 9th minute, but was on hand to put Matt Thomas into the corner for South's first score after 20 minutes. Lord converted well from wide out.
Athletic lost full back Paul Ryder to injury to be replaced by the evergreen Ashley Tapper which was the first of many injuries incurred by Ath extending the game eventually by 14 minutes. The strong wind was making it difficult for Ath to get out of their half as one of their penalty kicks was blown into touch at least 10 metres behind where the kick was taken.
Lord continued the good work by slotting a penalty to extend South's lead while full back Rich Lang went in under the posts after some excellent work by the now rampaging forwards and a bullocking run from Tom Armstrong. Lord converted to make the score 17-0 in South's favour at the break.

Memories of the Luctonians game when South were forced to face a gale in the second half flooded back to the South faithful, but they needn't have worried as South moved up several gears to literally blow Bedford away. The forwards kept the ball close and made continuous raids into Ath territory. Having sucked in the home defence the backs were released to cause havoc. A long range strike by Gaz Nicholson and two more tries from "poacher in chief" Matt Thomas were all converted by Lord which concluded the scoring. South didn't need to kick the ball into the eye of the gale during open play as they constructed some excellent close contact offloads resulting in long gains of territory as the Ath pack tired.
Chris Bale was the main ball carrier of the second half with some long barging runs setting up Thomas's second try, while John Hemsley, Ben Antill, Dom Green,Mike March and Wes Cartwright (on for Rob Sands) all contributed to create South's highest points haul of the season.
The set piece scrummage was good with the lineout much improved from previous weeks and it was good to see the backs open up and confidently score some dynamic tries.

Yellow cards for Mike March and Tom Armstrong along with Ath Captain Gary Acton were disappointing as was the performance of the pedantic young referee Craig Maxwell-Keys. He baffled both home and away supporters with some strange decisions while ignoring a number of obvious cheap shots served up by the home team in the last quarter of the game.

South now look forward to entertaining both Syston and Hinckley in local derbies in order to progress in the County Cup and to consolidate their league position, respectively.

Team: Lang, Thomas, Armstrong, Collins, Nicholson(Bailey), Lord, McFredries, Bale, Sands (Cartwright), March (c), Antill, Hemsley, Bayley, Green, Harris (James).

Man of the Match: Matt Thomas (Jug avoidance!)

Match report:Phil Lord