https://bedfordrugby.co.uk/news/2022/03/live-stream-blues-v-coventry-friday-under-lights" rel="nofollow - https://bedfordrugby.co.uk/news/2022/03/live-stream-blues-v-coventry-friday-under-lights

Especially with the madness in Europe, cost of living etc.

How much will sport be affected as prices for food, petrol and energy go up?

Hopefully next year, a structured season won’t turn out to resemble a lean to shed with a leaky roof.

However I will have a waterproof jacket and wellies ready next March.

It has been very frustrating as a season and I agree with your sentiments. At this point I think you do the Blues a disservice assuming they won't get through to the next round of the Cup - they are, on their day, a very good side and have every chance of getting through to the next stage (if that is what you want - I know it is the cup, and it has no value, but it is another chance to see the lads run out and entertain).

Good luck either way, and with the best of intentions I hope we don't see you next season , but if I do I know it will be exciting rugby.

I would say Blues have battered Cov, who go backwards with ball in hand and the maul was ineffective but for the 1st with 15 men several times 

They have just had a 2nd half time!

Ach, Cov should've lost. Absolutely battered...

The Bedford commentary failed to comment & acknowledge a first away win of the season.

What a place to achieve it as well. even though our injury riddles season continues.

A big well done to Ryan &the squad.

Anything else?

Friday night, good crowd with the six nations competing for rugby fans attention. A shame Bedford has such poor local media, am sure many ‘casual’ supporters are lost through no obvious marketing of the club or supportive media.

Also very confused as to how bedford won a penalty. Kicked to corner, started setting up a lineout, and the touch judge then decided to award a penalty 60m down the field to Coventry. 

I think that they have all coaching and players to compete at the top of the Championship but lack ambition and motivation.

I thought we defended well, and a superb counter attacking try in the first half, but goodness knows how many pens we were pinged for in that game. I’ve said it before, we need to learn to play Sir as well as the other team, never mind if you think they are right or wrong. 

Stupid pen to give Cov the lead, even though he’d been taken out in exactly the same way in the ruck before, or it looked that way from where I stood. Butchered some clear try scoring opportunities, bad luck or 15 cramped up when clean through, I think, and scoring looked easier than not, but it happens, and it all went wrong.

Noticed it more during CoVid and watching games on TV and listening to online commentary from various local BBC stations. Bedford, (maybe a lot of young players?) giving refs too many opportunities to penalise us. Many cases cannot be argued against. We have to really work on discipline, it feels from games I have been to this season the Blues like to see yellow cards.

Surprised to hear Sara being knocked, IMHO she is probably the best official at this level. Perhaps the line officials were not up to much.

She seemed better as a ref than doing the Radio 2 drive time show.

Oh sorry a different Sara Cox…

Neither was the section of the crowd who slow handclapped the treatment of an injured player..

I was there. Had an excellent sausage baguette before the game. Enjoyed being at an away match with a respectable-sized crowd, took a couple of hundred photos under the good bright floodlights, and have just finished processing them this morning.

As a Coventry supporter I went away happy. Coventry had come with a game plan that worked. The only downer was the front-row injuries - which when our most experienced prop is out injured (and was one of the water boys last night,), is worrying for the remaining games.

 
 

The requirement to remove an additional player in the event of uncontested scrums only applies if the requirement to have uncontested scrums results from a front row player being red/yellow carded. In does no apply if the cause is player injury.

Interesting comments about delaying the game. I think everyone does it when it suits - even Bedford shock horror. We see plenty of opposition do it at Cov when we want to play a faster more fluid game. 

Edit - I see someone has answered. 

This?

Blood Injury:

he team responsible for the uncontested scrums does not 

lose a player

• If the temporary replacement becomes permanent after 12 

minutes then the team continues with 15 players

Head Injury:

o Simultaneous Blood and HIA: 17 minutes to complete both 

the off-field screen and control the bleeding – may return 

after 12 minutes, but must return on 17 minute

• The team must form a scrum with eight players

Only applicable to approved 23 Player Format competitions

Good to get an away win. Always good battles with Bedford and always generates some good banter. 

All it takes is for one of those people to contest it and it's going to rumble on until a full consensus is achieved. Who knows, maybe the fourth and fifth officials were conflabbing and Googling off-field 

And yes, it's that black and white, so probably time to move on.

The rules themselves I think are nonsense. They were brought in to stop teams feigning injuries to go to uncontested scrums. Hence why 2 injuries not caused by foul play does require the extra player lost. However, these rules were originally made before HIA was a thing. I’m not for 1 second suggesting Coventry abused these rules, but if a team wanted to go to uncontested they could just take both props off for a HIA (I’m not sure how independently verified these are?)

It seems a little unfair that a team can lose a prop to injury, then from that point any yellow card to the other prop loses you 2 players. It doesn’t make any sense and I don’t think it’s achieving what it set out to do. On a larger point, one of my biggest bug bears as a whole is why are props yellow carded for not being good at scrummaging? You don’t yellow card a centre that keeps missing tackles or dropping the ball. You see it where a team is getting battered in a scrum. The referee speaks to the prop. What do you expect him to do, suddenly become a better scrummager? Just seems madness that if your scrum is weak, you can end up giving away constant penalties (fair enough) but are then also being down to 12 men. It seems like triple jeopardy  

Blues lost it from butchering the few opportunities in the 2nd half, the 1st they didn’t see much of the ball and when they dropped it. I think one of the earliest plays Coventry went backwards with ball in had but gained 60 ish metres, from 3 Blues errors albeit it was wet and the full back was the 1st time he had played there in a long time with Lane playing for Bristol on Sunday.

We have been so up and down this season, we should be up the top of the table but seem to struggle more against the lower league teams than the higher league ones!

In terms of that penalty kind of reversal! 

A Blues player was penalised for easing with his shoulder the chasing Coventry player to the box kick. So penalty Coventry you would think! 

However, the assistant who spotted this and told the referee. The penalty was awarded to Bedford with a Coventry player throwing his arms in the air to say how could that be the case, then he allowed Blues to take the penalty after a pause, kick it to touch to about 7m out, march up the pitch 40m, the hooker to dry the ball and the players virtually ready to take the line out before he realised that all of this should not have happened! Then he told the referee he’d messed up and the minute between all this happening shouldn’t have happened!

Always wondered why people get so wound up at the time it takes to get a decision correct. As long as they stop the watch so no playing time is lost what’s the problem?  Better to have the correct decision than acting in haste resulting in an unjust outcome. Ho hum. 

But those are the rules? And who said we (the supporters) didn’t trust the Coventry medical team? Bedford last season suffered from that stupid rule twice. One time due to injuries and one time it meant we had to play 12 v 15. So I think at the time we were aggrieved as to why it seemed when it happened to us we had to lose a player but not when it was the opposition.

This was one of the games referred to,12 months ago, with discipline not injury the cause: 3 different Blues props earning yellow cards, including two at the same time:   https://www.jerseyreds.je/match_report/bedford-blues-20-jersey-reds-25/" rel="nofollow - https://www.jerseyreds.je/match_report/bedford-blues-20-jersey-reds-25/

The real issue is how can a Championship standard officiating team:

1. Need to drag out a law book for about 10 mins in the middle of the match to read it.

2. An assistant referee can tell a referee that a team should be penalised and then allowed the minute of play to go on before he finally realises that this all should not have happened and the penalty should be the other way round.

I am sure any how crowd would be dissatisfied if they had to witness such sub-standard officiating for what is supposedly a professional league.

2 - see 1, above. 

There is no issue with having correct decisions. However, 2,818 people do not come to watch a book club! 

A referee and assistants in a professional league should know what the laws of the game are and then implement the ones they have awarded. It was a comedy act, which left most paying fans confused what was going on.

Oh dear.