Luton 7 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 30

The first 25 minutes of the game saw few scoring opportunities, as a forceful home side, playing down the slope and aided by the strong following breeze dominated territory and possession, but were unable to breach Stortford's strong defence. The stalemate was broken by a great break by Jonno Child, bursting in off the right wing to spin out a good pass wide to supporting fullback, Sam Winter, who drove over for a try out wide. Tom Coleman's attempted conversion unluckily bounced back off the near upright. It was only another two minutes, however, before the younger Child, Wayne capitalised on a good break out of defence by fellow centre, John Stocker and excellent support from second row, Hamish Irving to seize on a ricocheting inside pass and plunge over for a try. Coleman this time from the other side of the pitch made no mistake with the conversion. Three minutes later and the visitors seemed to be in total control, after another great burst by Stocker, taken on by Coleman and Winter set left winger, Nick Harris clear to touch down for a try, once again well converted by Coleman. Undaunted, though, Luton drove back onto the attack and took advantage of overly aggressive defence by Stortford, looking to strip the ball before ensuring a tackle was made, for their centre, Codie Medway to spin away and outstrip the cover defence for a try close to the posts after 34 minutes. This was duly converted. The visitors then had to battle for the remaining 8 or 9 minutes to keep out an increasingly aggressive Luton pack and see out the half at 7-17.

Turning to play with the breeze behind them, Stortford rightly looked to play the game in the Luton half and, thanks largely to some excellent kicks out of hand by Coleman were largely able to do so. The home side, though, refused to give in and their pack in particular continued to play with great determination. The next score, nevertheless came Stortford's way, 8 minutes into the half, when Coleman kicked a penalty from under the home posts after a breakdown offence. Stortford, soon deprived of Stocker's services after he was injured in one of many hard Luton tackles struggled to break down the stubborn home defence and yellow cards for retaliation to both flanker, Maehe Austin (along with Luton's Medway) after 18 minutes and to Irving (along with Luton's fullback, Aidan Kenny) after 24 minutes did nothing to increase the fluidity of the rugby. The deadlock was finally broken 37 minutes into the half, when Stortford's 4th, bonus point-winning try was scored by prop, Will Freeston, popping up in support out wide, after the rest of the pack drove hard at the Luton line, following yet another testing long kick from Coleman. This was arguably overdue reward for some rampaging runs by the number 3 over the last couple of weeks. Coleman again kicked the conversion and the final score of the game also went the flyhalf's way in the shape of a last-minute penalty for another home breakdown offence.

The spirit and ferocity shown by Luton throughout this game belied their lowly league position and they must surely rise up the table, if they can sustain this kind of form. A bonus point win away to such a determined side must be regarded as a good result, even though Stortford never quite looked like reproducing the kind of form that brought the recent excellent wins against both Ampthill and Dorking. Hopefully the well-earned Christmas break will see our team coming back, all guns firing for the testing home match against CS Rugby on January 7, when Stortford will be looking to extend even further their unprecedented 8-game winning streak in League rugby.