Director of Rugby, Mike Rayer has placed a key focus on discipline ahead of the Blues away trip against Cornish Pirates this weekend in the opening British and Irish Cup fixture of the season following pleasing performances in his side’s last two outings.  

Bedford overcame Jersey last Saturday to register their first home win of the season having trailed at the break, 3-8.  However a strong second half performance saw Rayer’s men rampage the Islanders’ defence to score three tries and secure a 25-20 victory to leave the team in positive spirits ahead of this Sunday’s match.

Rayer said: “This victory was important because we didn’t perform very well against Rotherham in our first home game so the lads were determined to put on a good show. The win was a real bonus in front of the home fans who turned out in good numbers.

“Saturday was one of those games that could have gone either way, but we stuck in there and showed a great bit of tenacity. I think our half backs were excellent, they put us in good positions territorial wise and we showed some great finishing ability.

“We’re getting lots right, but there’s still areas of our game we need to brush up on, particularly our discipline.  The lads have got to wise up, we can’t afford to be giving sides a leg up early in the game. It’s all well and good coming back from points down and getting the victory, but before long we’ll leave ourselves a mountain to climb and we won’t be able to claw that back.”

Commenting ahead of opening Cup fixture away in Penzance, the former Welsh international full-back added: “We always want to do well in this competition as we’ve had a couple of good runs in it. Pirates is going to be a humdinger of a game because they obviously treat this competition quite seriously given that they’ve got an even better record than we have.

“We’ve spoken about getting to a position where we expect performances and not hope for them and we’re getting there. If we’re at the top of our game then we hope to get a result out of Sunday.”