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Otley's Howard Parr rises in the line-out.

Otley 23 Bedford 19

"Up front, we had them - we certainly dominated the scrummage - and the line-outs were 50-50, where we made some wrong decisions in terms of the calls," said Otley's Howard Parr.

The National League Two leaders took a swift lead, skipper Ian Shuttleworth kicking a first-minute penalty without the aid of the absent kicking tee.

But with Otley prop Kris Fullman in the sin bin for pulling down a maul, hooker Dan Richmond put the sixth-placed National League One visitors ahead three minutes later with a try which winger James Pritchard converted.

Then, with Fullman back on, Shuttleworth was sin-binned for a high tackle on Exeter scrum-half Karl Dickson, and again Bedford took advantage.

An accurate cross-kick by fly-half Ben Patston found Pritchard in space and he had the simple job of catching the ball and falling over the line, Pritchard again adding the extras.

A fine break by centre Paul Mooney gave Otley hope and they took advantage when Bedford flanker Nic Strauss was yellow-carded for pulling down a maul.

After steady pressure in Bedford's right-hand corner, Parr got a try but in first-half injury time Otley were caught flat-footed and left winger Alex Page scooted over for a five-pointer to put the Blues 19-8 ahead.

Home winger Stephen Parsons looked a likely scorer until a last-ditch tackle stopped him four minutes after the re-start.

But the only points of the second-half came when Parr was penalised for use of the elbow, Pritchard landing the 63rd minute penalty.

Parr, was conscious of the effects of the sin-binnings on the outcome of this last-32 tie, adding: "We say every week that we want to keep 15 players on the pitch and at this level if you lose a man you are going to pay for it, and we did. But likewise when they went down to 14 men we scored so that kind of evened itself out."

Otley were missing some players through injury but part of it was also tactical. Coach Peter Clegg wanted to try out some of the younger players from the bench and they came on and gave a good performance, which will help with the future in mind.

"We put in a good performance, which is a good indicator for next year, but we have to concentrate on the league and it is paramount for this club , " said Parr.

6:28pm Monday 14th January 2008

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