Bedford Athletic 10

Bradford & Bingley 38

The Bees were delighted to come away with a six-try haul and the bonus point they needed to peg back a point on Macclesfield as they chase the play-off spot.

Although pleased with the victory, Bees head coach Geoff Wappett was not so enamoured with his side's performance, and said: "If we could review that game on tape, we'd see a very poor quality match, littered with mistakes, with no pattern to the play.

"Bedford could only try and slow everything down, and were allowed to. We should have run at them much more. I don't think I saw their centres have to make a tackle."

The fixture always had a potential banana skin look about it as Athletic are anchored to the foot of the table.

When the home side took the lead after seven minutes through a Jamie Rudkin try, the flanker being driven over by his pack, an upset looked a distinct possibility.

However, the Bees didn't allow this to knock them out of their stride for too long as they replied immediately with a tremendous solo effort from Latu Makaafi, who returned a wayward clearance kick fully 60 metres for the score. A number of home defenders seemed only too pleased to step out of the Tongan's way, and Tom Rhodes' conversion made it 7-7.

On the quarter-hour, full back Richards edged Bedford in front with a well-taken penalty, and for the next 15 minutes they were equal to everything the Bees threw at them.

The defence was finally breached around the half-hour mark, when centre Richard Tafa rounded off his side's first real flowing move of the afternoon. Five minutes later, tight-head prop Rudi Brits, got in on the act, forcing his way over the line from close range for his first try in Bees colours.

It was 17-10 to the visitors at half-time, and it took the Wagon Lane men just two minutes to improve on that.

A superb flowing handling move was finished off by Joe Simpson, who cantered over, Simpson adding the two points as skipper Rhodes was in the sin bin for a high tackle.

As the game wore on the Bees began to dominate all phases, particularly in the forwards, and more gaps appeared.

The visitors' man of the match Benny Greaves was revelling in the space, making a number of excellent runs into opposition territory.

Copying his team-mate's fleet- footedness, flanker Ian Judson set up the Bees' next score, neatly side-stepping a couple of defenders before slipping the ball to the support.

The ball zipped through another couple of hands, and Makaafi was the last man with the ball for the try.

Rhodes added the extra two, and back and forwards then combined up the left touchline for Kern Yates to score.