Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 26 Dorking 38

– well this wasn't quite one of those - Stortford did, after all, score 4 tries, but, unfortunately in between those high points, little seemed to work at all.

Both sides started rather tentatively, but Stortford had the majority of early possession. Unfortunately, they managed to contrive via a mixture of bad passes and good passes not caught to fritter this away. Having thus invited the visitors onto them, the home side proved even more hospitable by failing to make a large number of tackles. This was, perhaps, most telling when, after 25 minutes, Dorking took the ball blind from a scrum in their own half and were able surprisingly easily to give their right-wing, Mike Terelak room, which he exploited ruthlessly, weaving his way past half a dozen ineffectual defenders to touch down under the posts. The conversion by young flyhalf, Rob Stephen took the score to 0-7 and he repeated the feat 7 minutes later when, after Stortford had failed to punish the opposition for a couple of fumbles behind a breakdown, their hooker, James Catton burst away up the middle, again breaking weak tackles before setting two team-mates free on the right, but only the first, No 13, Richard Kemp was needed to register their second try. Stortford fought back and 6 minutes later registered their own try when, after a chip ahead by Marcus Cattell was regained on the right wing and the ball was quickly recycled for new lock, Tom Page to force his way over. Tom Coleman made the conversion, but it took only 2 minutes for Dorking to counter with a penalty by Stephen, after Stortford were penalised for crossing in midfield, when trying to run out of defence. The final score of the half, though went to the home team, when a good burst by Nick Harris down the right wing, ending with him regathering his own chip set up a ruck near to the Dorking line, from which flanker, Maehe Austin was able to burst over for the try, again converted by Coleman.. This brought the halftime score to 14-17.

The second half started disastrously for Stortford when, after a promising breakout from their own 22 from the dropout,a complete mixup from the back of a ruck saw a home pass elude all Stortford players and even allowed an opposing centre time to pick up the ball unmolested and make 15 yards or so, before setting his right winger in for his second try. Only five minutes had passed before Terelak was, once again set free on the right and two missed tackles saw him go round under the posts for his hat trick try which, surprisingly was not converted. After 15 minutes, we were finally treated to a glimpse of the skilful backplay, of which we know our side is capable, when skipper, Mark McCraith set up good ball in midfield on our own 22 and Cattell, stepping into flyhalf put up a delicate kick, which Coleman was able to gather, make 30 yards or so and then find Harris with a looping inside pass to go under the posts for a converted try. Barely 2 minutes had gone, however, before the margin was widened to 9 points, when centre Simon Love kicked a penalty conceded by Stortford, straying offside right in front of their posts. The game was effectively wrapped up some 8 minutes later, when Dorking went through a number of phases, after a long penalty effort by Coleman had narrowly missed the posts and they eventually set up left wing, Ryan Lucas who easily rounded the Stortford prop, who found himself totally exposed one on one with him, for another unconverted try. Stortford had still not given up the battle, though and a great break up the middle by substitute scrumhalf, Aaron Mahoney set Marcus Cattell free for a try, which Coleman couldn't quite convert. Within a minute, however, Dorking added another 3 points when they exerted pressure straight from the kick-off and were rewarded with a penalty for offside in front of the posts. This was the final act of the match and brought the score to 26-38.

It has to be said that, after a fairly nervous start, Dorking did capitalise well on a number of the many mistakes made by Stortford and, despite their own injury problems, played a lot of good rugby. There is no denying, however, that the home side put in a significantly under par performance, on which they will need to improve considerably for next week's visit to Ampthill