North Walsham 27 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 13

North Walsham came out from the very start determined to make life as hard as possible for their visitors and in the first half, when the home side was struggling in the scrums, this mostly had to take the form of committed and tough defence. They were, admittedly, aided in this by Stortford's struggles at lineouts and a lack of any cohesion to the visitors' attacking play which seldom advanced beyond taking the ball into the nearest opponent. The effect was pretty much a stalemate for the first 29 minutes, with only a penalty apiece from in front of goal - neither of which was converted - to show for a lot of endeavour. In Stortford's case, the kick at goal was spurned in favour of a quick tap, a move that was snuffed out after only two passes. The home side opted to kick for goal, but missed. The deadlock was broken on 30 minutes, when Tom Coleman kicked Stortford into a 3 point lead, after the home side was penalised at a breakdown some 35 metres out. After 36 minutes, Stortford finally found a chink in Walsham's defence when, for once the ball was transferred quickly to Hamish Irving after Will Freeston set up good possession in midfield and the second row was able to burst through, commit the final defender and set Jinmmy Rae free to run in an unconverted try. On the point of half-time, a further unconverted try was added by the visitors, following good interplay in midfield between Simon Wasley, Jimmy Rae and Phil Williams, which brought a five metre scrum, when the ball was held up over the line. Although Stortford again got a good push on, they almost wasted the chance when the ball squirted out at the side and it was retained only with great difficulty. A maul was, however set up and Freeston was able to drive over for the touchdown to bring the score at the interval to 0-13.

There is little doubt that the loss at half-time of skipper, Mark McCraith was a blow to Stortford's hopes of continuing to cope with the home side's robust style of play. Even though his replacement was stalwart Richard Gill, making his first appearance after a serious injury last season, his natural game is not as well suited to this kind of tight, hard-driving rugby as is his captain's. This cannot, though by any means fully explain a second half in which the visitors were clearly second-best and, as the balance of possession turned in Walsham's favour, they quickly discovered that the Stortford defence was by no means as strong as theirs. The first opportunity came the home side's way when Stortford, only 4 minutes into the half, unfortunately, not only failed to punish a poor home penalty, which failed to make touch but a sliced kick back fell nicely into the Walsham midfield and simple quick passing down the line was sufficient to put their left wing in for a try, which was well converted from wide out. A crucial three minute' spell after 19 minutes saw a major turnaround in the scoreline, when Coleman first narrowly missed a difficult penalty kick for goal, only for the opposition to sweep onto the attack with their outside centre eventually touching down under the Stortford posts, after the side took a quick penalty some 30 yards out and burst through some feeble attempted tackles. The conversion brought the home side a one point lead, but this looked as if it might be vulnerable when, five minutes later, their loosehead prop was yellow carded after a scrum offence. Unfortunately, before Stortford were able to capitalise on the one man advantage, their flanker, Aaron Springham was himself yellow carded for an off the ball offence on 32 minutes. After this, the visitors were unable to mount any sort of attack and, with continued defensive weaknesses showing, the writing was, sadly, on the wall. It took only 3 minutes for Walsham to widen their lead to 4 points, when they converted a penalty in front of the Stortford posts for failing to roll away after a tackle. Within a further 2 minutes, the scoreline became 22-13, when Stortford failed to deal with a good crosskick to the right wing, allowing the home side to hack through and touch down. The Walsham players' and supporters' joy was complete when, despite the yellow carding in the meantime of their scrumhalf for violent play, they registered in the 46th minute their fourth, bonus point try after driving relentlessly through several phases of mauls and rucks close to the Stortford line, finally managing to plunge over the line. The missed conversion left the final score at 27-13.

This was not a good day at the office for many Stortford players and they will need collectively to raise their game considerably for next week's home fixture against high-riding neighbours, Hertford.