St Ives Roosters 24 Bedford Tigers 34 FOR the second time this season injuries took their toll on St Ives Roosters as they went down 24-34 at home to a strong Bedford outfit. With influential scrum half Dan McCormack and the powerful running prop forward

St Ives Roosters 24 Bedford Tigers 34

FOR the second time this season injuries took their toll on St Ives Roosters as they went down 24-34 at home to a strong Bedford outfit.

With influential scrum half Dan McCormack and the powerful running prop forward Michael Cade out through injury, the home side had their work cut out.

The Roosters started well and opened the scoring on four minutes through Michael Sykes' strong run off the passing of stand-in-scrum-half John Paxton. Sykes then converted his own try.

The visitors soon hit back with a well worked try of their own when Bedford man of the match Stuart Riding latched on to Chris Potts' cross field kick to pull the scores level at 6 -6 on 10 minutes.

The remainder of the first half belonged to Bedford, scoring three unanswered tries until Paxton hit back just before half time with a blistering solo effort and some nifty footwork that put the visiting full back, Simon Bevan, on his backside. Paxton rounded him to score under the posts.

Roosters trailed 24-12 at half-time.

The loss of captain Andrew Dean to a head injury late in the fist half did nothing to assist the uphill climb the Roosters had to save the match, nor did an early second-half score from Potts, advancing the visitors lead.

The Roosters hit back with two second-half tries from Oliver Moorhouse, the second off the back of a great 75-yard kick from Oliver Jones. A lapse at a scrum midway through the half allowed the Tigers an easy score out wide.

Chairman and head coach Ian Hill said: "Failure to follow the game plan and failure to retain possession and complete the sets of six were the main factors that led to defeat."

The next Roosters match is at Colchester Romans on Saturday, July 1.