New man Alex Stanley marked his home debut on the left hand side of a flat back four, and looked promising enough in the early stages with some deft touches and confident, if not wayward long range passes.

In fact the Ducks made a pretty good start - some neat moves from Maskell in the midfield, and a good early start by Joe Baker who hit just wide on five minutes. Indeed, for the first 15 minutes, the Visitors were limited to one header that just went over, from a corner. Maskell had a goal disallowed on 12 minutes, presumably for off side; the linesman on that side seemed to have a very delicate grasp of the rules of the game.

Sadly, the good start wasn?t maintained. Our passing was all at sea, particularly Maskell, who only seemed able to pass to an orange shirt. Roni Joe seemed to be trying to take on too much, and Joe Bakers ability to run at defenders seemed to have evaporated with the end of his loan spell.

It was only the visitors lack of any real ability that stopped them taking advantage of our shoddy passing and almost powder puff attack. We lost momentum as the half went on, and to compound things, the tea bar had run out of chips by the mid-point of the first half. This seemed to sum up the afternoon rather well.

Chances were few and far between, a goal mouth melee in our goal on 22 minutes, Roni Joe aiming straight at their ?keeper 2 minutes later and Greg hitting the roof of their goal with a speculative 30 yarder on 32 minutes. The highlight of the first half, if that is what it can be called, was Craig Maskell being pulled down in their box on 35 minutes. The referee awarded the penalty, which was well saved by Steve Wilson in the visitors? goal.

Half-time: 0-0

To sum up the first half then:

Ducks: - poor passing, too much back passing, too quick to relinquish possession, having gone 3 hours without scoring a goal at home, I am disappointed we played with so little passion.

Bedford Town: - ?they came for a draw? seems too clich?d, but what they lacked in ability, they made up for in ?enthusiasm?.

The officials: - The referee wasn?t bad, he was driving the visitors home! The linesman who started on the chicken run side hadn?t read the rules and was having a job keeping up with play. I really thought the standard of officiating had improved this season, until today.

The Second Half: -

Steve McGrath made a welcome appearance, coming on at the start of the second half to replace Danny Gordon. McGrath made his presence felt almost straight away, creating an opportunity for Maskell to head just over. In fact we made a few chances early on in the half, Roni Joe was brought down by visitors no.8, who deserved a red card, and Roni hit the bar on the hour after some nice build up work. We were lucky not to concede on 62 minutes when a ball was scrambled off our line.

We lacked any real penetration in the final third though, and our passing was frankly dire throughout most of the second half, a free kick cleared off the Bedford line on 73 minutes was the only highlight until the last five minutes.

On 70 minutes a tactical change saw Kezie Ibe come on for Sam Sloma, in an effort to try for a goal. Ten minutes later, Rory Hunter came on for Greg Williams.

The last 10 minutes were quite bizarre. Bedford?s Mark Paul strolled through an apparently asleep Ducks defence to put the visitors a goal in front. This was about all we deserved, as we should have had the game wrapped up and were being made to pay for our failure to score. 1-0 Bedford

With 5 minutes of non-existent injury time played, the game had one final twist. Kezie Ibe managed to squeeze the ball in the visitor?s goal after an ugly goalmouth scramble. 1-1

This was probably more excitement than a dull game warranted. Bedford, with no disrespect were not at their best, and we are showing a level of inconsistency that is worrying. We need to sharpen up our passing, try to move forwards and not backwards quite so much, and some players need to dwell on the ball slightly less.