Sport

Irish still on course for place in Europe

Bedford's supporters will be anxiously looking heavenwards for night-time red skies over the Chilterns in the next fortnight

By IAN MALIN
Mon May 10 1999 - 01:00

Bedford's supporters will be anxiously looking heavenwards for night-time red skies over the Chilterns in the next fortnight. The Blues are not a wet-weather side and the prospect of a home and away play-off with Rotherham is not an enticing one.

In murky drizzle against London Irish there was little respite from a stormy season. Two late Bedford tries put a gloss on the score. In truth, as at a muddy Bath last autumn, they were swamped.

There are two Bedfords. One is the team who performed so vibrantly against Northampton a fortnight earlier and thumped West Hartlepool last week; the other is the jaded outfit that were beaten at home by Henley in the cup and which took to the field on Saturday.

It was a game too far for Bedford. Irish, with a sight of Europe on the horizon, rattled them from the kick-off. Their backs were sharper and their forwards ruthlessly cut off any supply of ball around the fringes of rucks and mauls. Conor O'Shea attacked like an Irish version of Christian Cullen and the All Black fullback's former understudy Jarrod Cunningham made his opposite number the RAF pilot Rory Underwood wish he was doing something more comforting, like looping the loop in a balsa wood glider.

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Underwood is retiring at the end of the season, although Bedford want him to stay on in a coaching capacity, and there was an air of pathos in his performance.

When Brendan Venter used the slope here with a perfectly judged chip to the corner near the end of the first quarter, Underwood, a substitute five minutes earlier, was caught off-guard and Cunningham ran around him to plunder the first of Irish's four tries.

Cunningham went on to collect 21 points, his languid swing of the boot defying the conditions as he slotted 16 points.

Underwood collected a try in the second half to help atone for his error but the game passed him by as Bedford's porous defence continued to leak points.

Irish must now anxiously hope that London Scottish can do them a favour by holding Bath at the Recreation Ground on Saturday in a match that is meaningless to the Scots. Those two late Bedford tries could be very costly.

Scorers: Bedford: Tries: Underwood, Harrison, Yapp. Conversions: Yapp 3. London Irish: Tries: Cunningham, Woods, O'Shea, Bachop. Conversions: Cunningham 2. Penalties: Cunningham 4.

Bedford: Stewart; Whetstone, Ewens (Howard, h-t), Murdoch (capt), O'Mahony (Underwood, 14min); Yapp, Elliott (Harrison, 51); Boyd (Ozdemir, 63), J Richards (Davis, 66), Hartland, Zaltzman, Murray (Duke, 59), Cockle, Forster (Elphick, 72), Winters.

London Irish: O'Shea (capt); Cunningham, Burrows, Venter (Bishop, 57), Woods; Bachop, P Richards; Hatley, Kirke, Hardwick (Fullman, 62), Strudwick, Harvey, Boer, Dawson, Feaunati.

Referee: B Campsall (Yorkshire).