A determined Tigers side headed to White Hart Lane on Saturday to take on a competitive and atheltic Skolars side.
The Tigers, looking to the future, handed debuts to Ryan Staff, Mark Marwood and Sean Tribbeck and the trio performed admirably earning applause from their team mates for their enthusiastic and domineering performance.
The Tigers started strongly and dominated the early exchanges. Skolars were aggressive in contact but the Tigers had a little too much organisation and experience to be intimidated by the fiery start.
Centre Euan Irwin once again produced another strong performance in his debut season for the club and scored after 5 minutes following good leadup work by the Tigers forwards. Australian Chris Potts converted from 15m in from touch to give the Tigers a 6 nil lead.
The Tigers extended the lead shortly after when Prop Jamie Goss took a quick tap and dived over in the corner. Again Potts nailed the touchline conversion push the Tigers out to 12 nil.
Sean Tribbeck on the left wing was now finding space at will and his pace, evasive skills and agility caused problem for the Skolars defence.
As has been the case all season the Tigers now allowed unforced errors to creep into their game and after a series of unneccessary penalties the Tigers now found themselves camped down on their own try line. Following quick play the balls the Skolars were able to burrow over from the play the ball and bring the score back to 6 - 12 to Bedford.
Over the next 10 minutes the Tigers tried to take control of the fixtures once again however the Tigers could not stop the rot that had set in and players continued to make foolish errors such as losing a scrum feed and the Tigers were also guilty of trying to play too much 'rugby' in their own half.
Skolars capitalised on the field position and possession and scored twice more from close range to take the lead 16 to 12 after only converting only one of the tries.
This loss of the lead in the game seemed to spring some life back into the Tigers who knew that it was only their errors that was keeping Skolars in the game. The Tigers hit back immediately from the restart, turned over possession and prop Jamie Goss powered through the defensive line shortly after, drawing the fullback he offloaded to left centre Ryan Staff in support on debut who scored under the posts. With the conversion from Potts the Tigers took the lead back at 16-18 as the half time whistle was blown.
At halftime the Tigers spoke confidently about taking this game from Skolars but that silly mistakes or unforced errors were making life difficult for the Tigers. The Tigers, with some new blood on debut, were somewhat more enthusiastic this week than previous games and confidently strode out for the 2nd half knowing that the cutting out the mistakes would be all it took to secure victory.
From the kick off the Tigers took control after forcing a knock on from Skolars. And backrower Dan Baroux dived over from short range after bouncing off defenders under the posts. Potts convered to extend the Tigers lead by 8 points. 16 - 24 Tigers.
The game now started to flow as fatigue set in for both sides due to the warm conditions and winger Sean Tribbeck made another scorching run from the next set of 6. However a reckless high tackle brough the flying Scotsman to ground and Tribbeck left the field of play soon after, and wouldn't take part in proceedings again for the afternoon.
With the lead now under control the Tigers should have taken control of the game however too many players once again, including experienced players started to make poor handling errors and bad decisions despite their years of experience and given the weight of posession and territory, Skolars again powered over from short range to draw back the lead. 22-24 Tigers.
Sam Richbell, took the lead once again in the front row and produced several storming runs and big hits in defence to keep the Tigers in the game. Sam was backed up admirably by captain Gary Flook, Terry Cater and Doug De St Aubins, who played his best game for the club in 1st grade.
Richbell powered over out wide shortly after following some good lead up work from Carter who burst through the middle on a previous tackle. Potts converted to extend the lead again by 8 points at 22-30.
From the restart the Tigers made an error trying to force the play despite being in the lead by 8 points and in spite of the fact all they needed to do was complete the set and get a good kick away on the last tackle and force Skolars to go the length of the field.
Mark Marwood now stepped up to the plate and in his debut rugby league game produced 4 quality efforts in defence to hold out the Skolars on the Tigers try line on the next set of 6 tackles. . As Skolars now through everything at the Tigers to try and get back into the game the Tigers started to make a few errors again and give Skolars the opportunity, but Marwood stopped pattern setting in again and swooped on a cut out pass from the Skolars backline and ran 70m to score under the posts. With the simple conversion from Potts the Tigers lead by 14 at 22-36.
With 10 minutes to go the Tigers wanted to focus on scoring again rather than simply falling into the trap of protecting the lead but the Skolars big boys rolled into action and found a half gap in the Tigers defensive line and soon after dived over from short range to bring the scores back to 28 to 36 following the conversion.
The lesson to be learned for the Tigers in defence all day was that if you give any opposition enough opportunity to run at you right on your own tryline, eventually someone will force his way through. The tigers must learn and learn quickly this lesson because the Tigers just need to understand ther importance of not making errors deep in your own half of the pitch, especially unforced errors.
Halfback Potts narrowly missed a drop goal opportunity on the next set of six tackles the Tigers had down in the Skolars half.
Skolars then, on the back on some poor errors once again and a penalty in the play the ball, moved up the pitch and following a play the ball just short of the Tigers line, a Skolars played dived over from the ruck area once again exploited the Tigers poor goaline defence which was a contrast to the fine defence on display in all other areas of the pitch for the Tigers. With the conversion missed the score was now 32 to 36 for the Tigers.
With only 3 minutes remaining the Tigers moved the ball down the pitch and Potts elected to take a snap at drop goal from 30m out to just extend the lead that little bit more. Score 32 to 37 to the Tigers.
From the restart, with the Tigers receiving the ball, hooker Craig Walker controlled the ruck area and the big Tigers forwards just focussed on holding onto the ball to close out the remaining minutes. Walker performed admirably all day in his new role at hooker and this experience will serve him well in the future as the coaching staff are interested in making the positional move long term.
For the Tigers, this was a strong win given the debuts of 3 new players in the backline. In fact, in the match day 17 a total of 6 players were playing their first season of rugby league and this is promising for the future of the club.
Staff, Marwood and Tribbeck will only get better with more game time and showed many experienced Tigers players on the saturday that selection in the top 17 players in the club will always be contentious and no one should ever rest on their laurels as the Tigers continue to be able to recruit quality players. The challenge, as its always been for the club, dominated by union players, is too keep the best 20 players together as a unit and move forward on and off the pitch.
The Tigers have now put together 3 wins back to back and are looking forward to having a series of home games now. The difficult draw this season, with over 6 away games in London in a row has really hampered the Tigers season and development as a club but the boys are hoping to turn things around now and this includes a renewed attitude towards training.
Man of the Match Points -
3. Sam Richbell
2. Euan Irwin, Chris Potts and Gary Flook
1. Sean Tribbeck, Ryan Staff, Jamie Goss and Mark Marwood
Score - Bedford Tigers 37
London Skolars 32
Tries - Irwin, Goss, Staff, Richbell, Baroux and Marwood
Conversions - Potts 6 from 6 conversions
Drop Goals - 1 drop goal. |
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