Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 36 CS Rugby 27

Stortford were soon put on their mettle, as the visitors capitalised on a loose defensive kick from the home side to launch a wave of attacks on the home try-line, in which they never looked like coughing up the ball. After two or three phases of strong forward play, they chose their time well to spin the ball to their backs and exploited thin home cover outside to burst over the line in the centres for a converted try after only 6 minutes. The home side quickly refound their pre-Christmas form, however, when centre, John Stocker side-stepped his way over the line under the posts off a slick inside pass from flyhalf, Tom Coleman. Coleman made no mistake with the conversion and three minutes later put his side into the lead with a penalty kick from the visitors' 10 metre line, after CSR were penalised at the breakdown. Within five minutes Stortford decisively increased their lead, as Stocker drew in the opposition defence before throwing a miss pass to left wing, Jimmy Rea, who ran round to give his skipper a relatively easy conversion. On thirty minutes a third home try semed to put Stortford clearly in the driving seat, as right wing, Nick Harris took a good inside pass from fullback, Sam Winter who had broken strongly out of defence. Coleman's conversion attempt from out wide was adjudged to have been marginally wide. The last score of the half, however, went to the visitors via a penalty from skipper, Scott Hadden for offside, as Stortford tried to repulse an attack set up by one of a number of poor home kicks - particularly unfortunate, since Stortford on this occasion were on the counter-attack. A halftime scoreline of 22-10 hardly did justice to the dominance that the home side had enjoyed for the vast majority of the first period and set things up for what was to prove to be a very competetive second half.

CSR started the second half in the same positive vein as they had begun the match and it took some stout home defence to keep them out. In the event, it was Stortford that registered the first score of the half, as No. 8, Mark McCraith broke decisively off the back of a 5 metre scrum to plunge over for a try close to the posts after 20 minutes. Coleman converted with ease. At this stage, a combination of determined play from the visitors and some lacklustre Stortford defence brought a potentially crucial swing in fortunes, as CSR registered two tries in the course of the next 10 minutes. Both were scored out wide and fortunately for the home side, the conversions proved to be beyond Hadden's compass. With the gap, nevertheless, reduced to 9 points, it was somewhat against the balance of play that the home win was pretty much secured by a converted try some 5 minutes later. The crucial score came from a brave decision by Coleman to spurn three points from a penalty under the visitors' posts to punt crossfield to the left wing, where Rea leapt high to take the ball just inside the sideline and dived over for a try in the corner. Coleman's great conversion took the lead to 16 points. Any thoughts that Stortford might have had of coasting home were, however, shattered within 5 minutes, when CSR took full advantage of some weak tackling by the home team's forwards to register a converted try. There followed a frantic 5 or 6 minutes as the visitors battled for a second bonus point for narrowing the losing margin to within 7 points. In the event, some stubborn Stortford defence prevailed and saw the home side through to a 36-27 win.

There was doubtless more than an element of post-holiday rustiness in today's disjointed performance, which mixed moments of brilliance with instances of poor control and uncharacteristically weak defence. It is to be hoped that another week's preparation will see a much more cohesive performance against visiting Staines.