Coach Mike Schmid, who first joined Esher in 2005, is on a two-year deal

Bedford Blues ran in four unanswered tries as they sent Esher spiralling to their first defeat of the season.

The Blues started brightly, with tries from James Pritchard and Handre Schmidt helping them take control.

Full-back Sam Ulph was on target with the boot for Esher, kicking three penalties to make it 17-9 at half-time.

But Bedford continued to dominate after the break, further tries from Darryl Veenendaal and Sean Tomes providing a crucial bonus point.

Full back Pritchard added four conversions and a penalty for the home side.

The win puts Bedford second in the Championship table, while Esher slip down to sixth.

Esher head coach Mike Schmid told BBC Surrey: "I was disappointed with the effort we put in today. We had a good game plan going into the game and we didn't execute it.

"We sat back and let them play, and when you do that against Bedford they're a good team."

He added: "We created the chances today but we just didn't finish them, and part of that is when your playing a lot of defence as well.

"We had a very high turnover count when we had the ball, so we didn't actually build the phases we needed to structure a game plan.

"For whatever reason our midfield didn't push the ball to our wingers today and we suck in the midfield and when we did have space and overlaps we just didn't use them."

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version