Dorking 35 Bishop's Stortford Ist XV 0

Hopes that the few weeks' weather and holiday break would allow Stortford to field a significantly stronger side than the heavily injury-hit teams seen for much of the season proved ill-founded, with four additional regulars in fact being unavailable for a variety of reasons. Despite this, the players battled hard, with late replacements, Joe Foster at scrumhalf and Sam Winter (making his 1st XV debut) at fullback both showing up well. A special mention is also deserved by Matt Chambers, who made a strong impact, despite having travelled up by train from Exeter as far as Reading, where he was picked up by his Dad to complete the journey to Dorking and all to play in the second row rather than his regular backrow berth!

Unfortunately, they came up against a very strong home team, who put pressure on at all phases, including a strong domination of the set scrums. As a result, good possession was at a premium and,when it did come, the Stortford backs strugled to cope with the home side's rush defence. Despite playing up the significant slope, Dorking enjoyed the better of the early exchanges and duly took the lead with a penalty by flyhalf, Matt Noble for offside after 10 minutes. It was Noble again who registered the next score, when he rounded off a searing break up the middle by young scrumhalf, Will Crow to touch down out wide for an unconverted try after 21 minutes. Stortford rarely threatened to score, but did come close, when Tom Coleman spurned a very kickable penalty to set up a 5 metre lineout, from which a try-scoring chance did fall to Chambers, which might well have been converted, had the pass to him not been delayed slightly, thus depriving him of forward momentum. It was, nevertheless, 17 minutes before Dorking scored again and even this was due to Stortford's generosity, when No 8, Damian Sangster marred an outstanding performance by conceding a penalty under the posts for retaliation after a scrum had just been awarded to his side. Noble, inevitably took the three points on offer to take the score to 11-0. Worse was to come for the visitors, however, when reduced to 14 men by Sangster's sin-binning for the penalty offence, they quickly conceded a second try to left wing, Richard Kemp after a missed tackle in midfield saw the home backs swarming through and quick hands did the rest. Noble converted to take the halftime score to 18-0.

Stortford defended well early on in the second half and saw out the rest of the sin-bin period without conceding further points. Unfortunately, the barricades could not be kept intact for lomg, though and, after 13 minutes, tighthead prop, Greg Bateman burst down the blindside of a ruck 5 metres out from the line to touch down wide out.
Ten minutes later, it was the outstanding Noble who registered his second try, touching down under the posts, after a good break by fullback, Spencer Richards. The conversion took the score to 30-0. Further Dorking pressure ensued, with another try being avoided only by virtue of an excellent last-ditch tackle by Winter. The home side was not to be denied a final try, however after 35 minutes, when they counter-attacked after turning over possession from a rare Stortford attack and more slick handling, maintained despite a tremendous cover tackle by Phil Williams led to a touchdown out wide. Stortford did show tremendous spirit by mounting a sustained period of pressure in the remaining minutes, culminating in a scrum close to the Dorking line, but the final whistle went before the scrum could be set.

Next week sees fourth-placed Ampthill visit Bishop's Stortford and, with the prospect of one or two players missing today returning to the side, it is to be hoped that the team can pick up in the same positive vein with which they finished this very tough game to run the visitors close - as we did in the away fixture early in the season.