Whether a big and, initially noisy home crowd caused a level of nervousness in the Stortford side, only the players will know but, what was clear was that the home team started extremely slowly, failing to put any phases together and kicking away decent ball far too readily. This allowed the visitors to monopolise early possession and to work their way into a good, attacking rhythm, which they took full advantage of, scoring tries after 7 and 11 minutes through their fullback and openside flanker, with flyhalf, Ben Penfold converting the first for a 12-0 lead. At this stage, Stortford started to compete much better on both sides of the ball and totally dominated the rest of the half. It could be argued that they were unlucky to have three tries ruled out - 2 considered to have been held up over the line and 1 for a knock-on, which appeared to happen after the ball had been touched down. Had the home side been able, though to make more clearcut chances, as Cambridge had done, they would not have depended on marginal decisions but they were unable to make clear breaches through the highly committed Cambridge defence. Eventually, though the pressure told when, after 37 minutes Matt Tomlinson crashed over under the posts after a series of powerful drives from the Stortford forwards and this time there was no doubt whatsoever about the touchdown. Cullen converted , as he did 3 minutes later, when Nick Hankin sliced open the visitors' defence for the first time, after good use was made of a turnover well inside the Cambridge half, with Sean Edwards driving forward and offloading to his fullback, who did the rest. A narrow, 2 point lead, therefore to Stortford at the break.

Stortford picked up, where they had left off after the break and Cullen added three points to his and his team's tally after 8 minutes, when the visitors were penalised at a scrum. The advantage was short-lived, however , when Cambridge scrumhalf, Cameron Keenan anticipated a short inside pass in Stortford's midfield to take a clean interception and scoot in untouched under the posts, giving Ben Penfold an easy conversion. The home side fought back and, despite having missed an easier shot at goal only a few minutes earlier, Cullen kicked another penalty from distance after 20 minutes of the half to nudge his side back into a one point lead. This situation, though again did not last long, with Cambridge capitalising ruthlessly on a sloppy handling error in midfield, compounded by a badly missed tackle to allow No 8, Jake McCloud to burst over under the posts after only 2 minutes. The game was effectively ended as a contest 7 minutes later, when centre, Matt Hema took a sharp inside pass to crash over through a double tackle by Stortford forwards for another converted try to take his side out into a 13 point lead. Although Stortford rallied again, it was too little too late, as Hankin made an excellent break and, when he was hauled down just short of the try line, the ball was quickly recycled for James Apperley to touch down on the left wing. Cullen made the difficult conversion to win a losing bonus point which, was a fair reflection of the overall balance of play, with the visitors seeming to have had a slight edge in aggression on both attack and defence.

Thanks go to great Club supporters, Tees and BIT Solutions for their joint sponsorship of today's match ball and Stortford's Man of the Match award, which went to Baxter Wilson for his determined play throughout.