“We didn’t get the rub of the green with the referee at all. The boys are very unhappy and very disappointed by the manner in which we lost. The guys are not happy with their performance. The killer blow was losing Hendrie Fourie! You have to remember we are digging very deep into our reserves.

We have 7 guys coming back this week and that’s going to be big for us. We didn’t put any phases together; we were disappointed with the referee. He called advantage over for Strettle’s interception and then changed his mind. The refereeing in this match has been a disaster.

The plan second half was to use our kicking game more, but I need to look at our decision makers on the pitch! They had to take that option, they knew it was planned. They’ll get a smack for that.

They knew exactly what to do and I’m not going to allow guys not to do what I’d pre-determined has to be done. The whole plan was to play in that corner in the second half and don’t let them come out of there – we didn’t do it.

 don’t accept the fact that people say we don’t have a potentially great side currently, that’s not good enough. This side should have beaten them today; they were there for the plucking.

I thought the forwards were excellent in what they were doing and we’ve just heard that one try wasn’t a try, but we’re not going to cry about that. What is important to us is that we didn’t play well, but we’ll fix the things that went bad.

People out there may be happy with our performance, but our standards have risen, our standards within the club have risen. We are not accepting mediocre performances.

We’ve shown we can be shocking on the pitch – and today at times we were shocking – and we can still compete with the best. And that says to me the sky’s the limit. I feel today it was one that completely got away, with us playing badly. All that we did was defended well in the first half – that’s all that we did!”

Lee Blackett

“We are all disappointed, we didn’t play well and that’s only half the disappointment. The game was there to be taken; we had a solid first half performance without playing any good rugby.

In the second half maybe we took our foot of the pedal, most of the decisions went against us and everything seemed to go wrong for us.

There was two main refereeing points. Near the end Stretts interception, the referee called advantage over and then a second later one of their guys throws a pass. Stretts intercepts and as we all know Stretts is never going to be caught, that was seven points.

Their try in the second half off the maul was held up! Neil Cochrane held it up and was furious; he couldn’t believe it was given. Neil’s an honest lad and he wouldn’t lie.

I think the kicking in the second half was the main reason why we struggled, it just wasn’t good enough. I think today has shown we can beat anyone home and away, even when we are not at our best.

We set out to finish in the top four and we still want that, this was four points that we should have gained. Unfortunately we’ve ended up with nothing out of it, when we deserved at least something.”

Chris Johnson

“There was no point in the game where we thought we were running away with it and that’s testament to the Rotherham side. They were a very gutsy team who put in a very gutsy performance.

It was a very physical game out there, there’s an awful lot of rivalry between the two clubs. And if anything after the high of convincingly beating Penzance last week, this was the ideal follow-up game, we knew we couldn’t be complacent. With the history between the two clubs it was always going to be a very physical, a very close game and it didn’t disappoint today.

I’m aware that Rotherham’s back row is a very tidy unit; the number seven spoiled a lot of ball. The number 8 Donald, the game sort of revolves around his performance and the pack was a tidy unit today. And Christ! David Strettle – he’s got gas to burn. We’ve always known that, we’ve known it all week and he still carved holes. You can see why he’s in the England squad and he thoroughly deserves it.

We were a little bit disappointed; we had the predominance of possession and played very well. We had a lot of territory but kept turning over the ball at crucial points. We still have an awful lot to work on, but we are getting better and we’re still wining games.”

How far can Bedford go? “Hey, I know this from my time at Rotherham, as soon as you start thinking anything stupid that’s when you come a cropper! Clichés aside, we have to take every game one at a time.

There’s been some shock results in this league. No disrespect to Newbury’s and Nottingham’s but these teams have been turning over the Plymouth’s and Exeter’s. The guys that we know have been strong of old. You can’t think we’ll cruise through this one and think about next week.

You’ve got to keep building and to be fair that’s why Bedford are doing quite well; we are taking it one game at a time. Giving each opposition we come across the due respect they deserve.”