Picture supplied by Oxford RLFC
Bears fight back but its to late for victory
Oxford RLFC 30 Coventry Bears 28
Saturday 18th February 2017 2pm kick off, Abingdon
It was the first round of the iPro cup at the weekend, the final warm up to the League 1 campaign.
Bears made the short trip down to Oxford, to meet their comparatively local rivals who play in Abingdon.
The game did not start well for the Bears, and after five minutes, they were 6-0down and shortly after that it was 10-0.
Then they regained their composure and pulled a try back thanks to Jack Morrison giving a respectable scorelines of 10-6 at half time.
Oxford returned to the pitch in better shape in the second half and were cruising to victory as the margin became 24-6.
The Bears may have been beaten by more, but Matt Reid proved inspirational as captain, scoring a hat trick of tries against the further try that Oxford could muster.
Sadly the comeback was too late with the last of the tries being in the final minute of play, leaving the score at an agonising 30-28 in favour of Oxford, and Bears not featuring in the second round draw.
Bears will now face Hunslet this next weekend in the Challenge Cup third round and will hope for a better performance.