A light wind, no sun, warm temperature and a marvelous pitch, provided ideal conditions to play rugby. The visitors from Bedford were well drilled and showed early promise with some fast backs who threatened to break through Harborough's defence.

However, it was the home side who really came out of the blocks fastest and tore into Bedford. The Black Cats gained dominance in the scrummage and loose forward play and in turn this allowed a plentiful supply of first and second phase ball. Blades, Burrows and Brown caught the eye in the early exchanges but it was the sniping and weaving of Josh Purnell that provided the first two tries of the game. Monty Maule promoted to inside centre, calmly claimed the extra conversion points. With the game barely 15 minutes old Harborough were ahead 14-0.

The continuity play around the park was excellent with backs and forwards handling the ball with skill and dexterity. Bedford were still on the back foot and struggled to gain much field position from which to score points. Jack Digby had some barnstorming and battering runs into the heart of Bedford's defence. Tom Claffey was thriving with Maule outside him and the ball continually traversed the pitch; this was a real pleasure for the large home crowd. Another beautifully crafted move saw Will Marriot go over on the right hand side and Monty Maule duly did the kicking honours and then added a penalty just before half time. Eventually the visitor did breach the Harborough defence and got their scoreboard moving. This still left Harborough in a commanding position of 24-7 at half time.

The second half started in much the same vein as the first half with Herdman, Waterfield and Moss getting into the action. With 5 second half minutes on the clock, Monty Maule went over in the left hand corner, but couldn't convert and Harborough moved out to 29-7.

It looked ominous for Bedford and could have turned into a long second half for them. Credit must go to the visitors for the next 25 minutes of play, they steadied Harborough's dominance at the scrum and launched a series of well worked attacks. It was however, the unsual sight of Jack Burrows crashing over from open play that thwarted Bedford's attempts to close the gap and Harborough now led 36-7.

Undeterred by the score line Bedford scored two tries of their own, one a delightful chip kick through the home side's defence and after a maul close to Harborough line the arrears had been reduced to 36-17. There was a spate of yellow cards for both sides and Harborough's penalty count did allow Bedford back into the game. Some changes of personnel also stalled the free flowing rugby and at times in the second half Bedford looked like this was going to be tighter score line.

You can never keep Sam Staff in the shadows for long. He sprung into action, delivering a trademark lung busting gallop in from 30 plus yards. This capped off a great team performance made all the better because it was against a competitive Bedford Athletic side.

Harborough 2nds continued their impressive recent form with a 52-10 victory over Vipers 2nds.

Next week sees the 1sts travel to Daventry, we hope to see you there.