The Mob made the short trip to Goldington Road in Round 16 of Champ Rugby to play a Battle of Bedfordshire under the Friday Night Lights, kicking off in driving rain on an already heavy pitch.
Both teams cancelled each other out for nearly 30 minutes of the game – two huge Mob defensive sets preventing Blues from opening the scoring, and Ampthill throwing shots at their hosts that in better conditions would have drawn dividends.
Ampthill opened the scoring on 27 minutes – Louis Grimoldby opting for the posts when awarded a penalty on the twenty-two, and doubled their advantage two minutes later from an almost identical position to give the Mob a 0 v 6 lead with 30 played.
Bedford soon took advantage of Ampthill ill-discipline and scored from a tap penalty 5m out, Uru diving over right of the posts and an easy first conversion of the night for Maisey to complete the first half scoring on 34 minutes.
Blues came out firing for the second half and a harsh Charles Ryands yellow card at the restart gave the hosts a man advantage for ten minutes during which they would punish the Mob. Two quick fire tries from short-range extending their lead to 21-6 before parity was returned.
Dave Ward started to empty his bench with the introduction of Premiership winners Barrington and Johnston in the front row which they thought may tilt the scrum in the Mobs favour but to no avail. Jake Parkinson came on to replace Tino Mapapalangi but they couldn’t prevent Blues scoring from a maul – ex Ampthill man Rory Ward dotting down.
Ampthill scored their only try of the game with five minutes to play, Sione Va’enuku breaking the line, drawing a defender and feeding Josh Barton to score right of the posts giving the travelling support something to cheer before Bedford closed out the game with a final try of the night.
Following the game, Head Coach Dave Ward said “It was a pretty good derby up until about 60 minutes, we gave ourselves a chance I thought we played some fantastic rugby in the first half when we had the ball, our defensive sets were great – we kept Bedford out and went in at half time pretty confident. Credit to Bedford, the yellow card and two tries and it was an uphill battle from there”
Ampthill Points Scorers:
Try: Barton (75)
Conversion: Morgan (76)
Penalty: Grimoldby (29, 30)