Barnes 61 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 3

As Stortford's injury list gets even longer – key youngsters, Declan Caulfield and Ben de Grandis added this week – the unavailability of Damien Sangster and Jack Knowles against unbeaten Barnes proved to be beyond our young team's ability to absorb.

Having started brightly with early possession, Stortford's defence was quickly found wanting, as the ball was turned over in midfield and two or three quick phases were enough to see Barnes' right wing in for a try after 5 minutes. The home side took a while to further exploit the visitors' failings in the tackle and the next score came on 20 minutes, when the Barnes flyhalf was not only allowed to recover a pass dropped behind him, but then to loop round and run through a gaping hole where the previous breakdown had been and finally break 2 weak tackles to plunge over for a converted try. There followed another brief respite, before further tries were quickly rattled up by Barnes after 30, 32 and 38 minutes which, with 3 conversions took the score to 33-0. To be fair, the home side proved themselves to be extremely capable in all parts of the field and would have tested a much more experienced and stronger side than ours, but Stortford's failure to put them under any pressure at all, when Barnes had the ball did nothing to dent their confidence. Stortford's only score of the game was registered just before halftime, when flyhalf, Chris Clayton Smith kicked a penalty from under the posts after one of Barnes' old hands killed the ball at a ruck, as the visitors made their first concerted assault on the Barnes line since the opening minutes.

Stortford came out more aggressively in the second half but, with tails now well and truly up, Barnes were not to be denied and, when a brave Stortford breakout from their own 22 led by Clayton Smith was ended with a turnover, the ball was quickly moved to the Barnes 18, playing on the right wing, who ran round the cover defence for another converted try after 5 minutes. Stortford's more spirited play brought a spell of more even rugby, during which they showed signs of some of last week's sweeping play, though not really threatening to score. It nevertheless, took Barnes another 20 minutes to register their next score and this was a real cracker, breaking out of their own 22, with great support play from forwards and backs leading to another converted try. Shortly after this, the Stortford cause was dealt a further blow with a yellow card for second row, Tom Page for foul play, after he had already been spoken to a couple of times after off the ball incidents. On 35 minutes,as Stortford once again tried in vain to run the ball out of defence, a dropped pass in midfield created a chance, which the rampant Barnes side were not going to spurn and another converted try, this time via their forwards took the score to 54-3. There was time enough for Stortford to squander their best scoring chance of the day, as battling fullback, Jimmy Rae burst through out wide on the right, but couldn't find the supporting winger with what would probably have been a scoring pass. The final say, inevitably went to the home side, as Stortford's tiring defence, once again was found wanting by the right winger running diagonally through midfield to set up number 18 for yet another converted try.

This was a really tough test for a sorely depleted Stortford side against a very strong team. It was good to see our boys fighting back in the second half, though and valuable experience will undoubtedly have been gained. Many of our injuries will, hopefully have cleared up well before the return fixture but, whether or not this is the case, Barnes can expect a significantly harder time when they come to Stortford as can Bracknell after next week's break.