A couple of hundred dedicated Blues and RAF fans braved the rain to watch a massively entertaining game of rugby at Goldington Road on Wednesday night.

A saturated pitch and slippy ball made for plenty of handling errors, but there was also some fine attacking rugby on display from both teams, but ultimately it was the Blues Development team – which included Sam Walsh, Ian Vass, Sean Tomes, Handre Schmidt, Chris Locke and Will Chudley – that took the spoils.

The early advantage was very much with the Servicemen who enjoyed the majority of possession and territory in the opening 15 minutes, but they weren’t able to break down the stubborn Blues defence despite fine efforts from Wood, Parker and Warmsley.

Against the run of play, it was Bedford who opened the scoring with a well taken effort by winger Josh Bassett following excellent rucking by the forwards and a nice exchange of passes with Chudley and Elliot Bale who added the extras.

Three minutes later and it was 14-0 when the RAF were punished for an offside close to their line and Schmidt took the quick one to go over giving Bale an easy conversion.

The RAF hadn’t fully recovered from the quick onslaught and the Blues added a third try in the 30th minute. De Le Rey Veenendaal collected the ball on the left wing and breezed through the defence to score on the left wing, but it was just out of range for Bale.

As the half neared its conclusion there was still time for two more tries with the first being a deserved one for the RAF. Having discovered their form of the opening 15 minutes they drove up the field with a series of rucks and mauls before number eight Tallet broke away to score an unconverted effort.

Two minutes later though, and the hard work was undone as the RAF were penalised at the scrum and the ball went out to Bassett who brushed off a half-hearted tackle before running under the posts with Bale converting to make it 26-5 at the break.

The second half started with the Blues once again defending their try line, but this time the RAF had the advantage of the Goldington Road slope behind them. Once again though the resilience was there and for ten minutes Bedford repelled everything that the RAF could throw at them.

The Blues turned defence into attack and for the next ten minutes they set up camp in the RAF’s 22, but this time it was the visitors who defended superbly. Schmidt thought that a second was on the cards for him, but as he went over the line the ball popped out of his grip.

In the 62nd minute the Blues broke in style with the backs showing their class following a big punt down field by the RAF. Bassett was at the heart of the attack, but a chip forward bounced away from the pacey winger and the visitors were truly let off the hook.

The pressure finally came to fruition in the 65th minute when the Blues pack pulled together at a lineout and drove over from close range with Rob Laird touching down but the conversion pulled narrowly wide.

With the game wrapped up the Blues started to play some delightful running rugby and Bassett was unlucky not to complete his hat-trick as Bedford broke along the left. With the ball close to the line and the RAF obviously paying too much attention to Bassett, Chudley skipped over to score and Bale converted sublimely to make it 38-5 and that’s how it finished.

Scorers. Bedford: Tries; Bassett (2), Schmidt, Veenendaal, Chudley, Laird – Cons; Bale (4). RAF: Try; Tallet.

Teams. Bedford: Veenendaal, Schmidt, McMaster, Vass, Bassett, Bale, Chudley, Walsh, Locke, Laird, Tomes, Dunn, Dyer, Peters, Ince. Replacements: Allard, Campbell, Walker, Heron, Kevin, Rayer, Smith, Carrington.

RAF: Reid, Gutteridge, Warmsley, Parker, Hankinson, Wood, Gartland, Kibble, Curry, Evans, Parr, Craig, Watkins, Attwool, Tallet. Replacements: Craig, Winchester, Middleton, Carey, Clark.