Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 40 Gravesend 21

The home side struggled to get any flow of possession throughout the first half, as visitors, Gravesend took advantage of a strong edge in the scrums and some generous turnovers from the hosts to run through phase after phase to dominate possession as well as enjoying the better of territory. It was no surprise, therefore, that it was Gravesend that registered the first score after five minutes via a penalty by winger, Dave Dorton, when Stortford were penalised for offside under their own posts. Three minutes, later, though the home side took the lead with a try to John Stocker. This was set up by a rare success at a restart, when Stocker himself made a clean take from a short dropout by his flyhalf and after a few phases of good interplay between forwards and backs, the centre, in support out wide on the right was able to round the last defender and run round under the posts. Tom Coleman's conversion extended the lead to 4. Stortford again struggled to get hands on the ball and 20 minutes into the game, Gravesend's ability to hang onto the ball and run through phase after phase was again rewarded with a Dorton penalty. Stortford were once again quick to respond, making clinical use of some rare possession for Stocker to register his second try, this time supporting on the inside after good ground was made down the left wing by Maehe Austin and Nick Harris. Another conversion by Coleman took the scoreline to 14-6 after 23 minutes. Once again the home side failed to claim the restart and conceded another eminently kickable penalty, which Dorton uncharacteristically missed. The visitors were not to be denied for long, though and after 28 minutes, when a clumsy attempt by Stortford to tidy up loose ball on halfway allowed Gravesend to flyhack through, yet another penalty (for killing the ball) was conceded and the culprit, Jonno Child was yellow-carded. Dorton made no mistake with his goal attempt, narrowing the gap to 5 points. The home side had virtually seen out the sin bin period without conceding any more points, when another penalty resulted in a yellow card for Tom McCraith. Gravesend took full advantage of their two extra men by kicking for touch, setting up a maul from the resultant 5 metre lineout, from which one pass was enough to find a gap in the stretched home defence. Dorton duly converted to take his side into a deserved 2 point lead. Stortford once again, though showed their sharper cutting edge by exploiting what was virtually their third decent ball of the half to score their third try right on the stroke of halftime. The scorer this time was wing, Wayne Child, running a good angle in off the blindside wing to take a pass from Coleman to run in untouched under the posts. Coleman's routine conversion took the score at the break to 21-16.

Stortford Captain and Coaches seemed to have made good use of the halftime break, when their side restarted the game with all guns blazing and proceeded to dominate possession for the next 30 minutes - as Gravesend had for virtually the whole of the first half. They were able to make much better use of this dominance than had the visitors, though and registered two further converted tries after 5 and 13 minutes of the half. The first went to Jonno Child who, with support from his brother finished off an excellent outside break by Hamish Irving, which had been set up when prop, Will Freeston ripped the ball cleanly from an opponenet's grasp in midfield. The second, bonus point-winning try of the half again went to Stocker, completing his hattrick by stepping in against the flow of a move to the right to take a short pass from Coleman and touch down to the left of the posts. Despite not seeing much of the ball, Gravesend stuck to their guns and after 21 minutes came back with their own try, capitalising on a turnover in the Stortford 22 as the home side's handling for once let them down. The home victory was pretty much sealed after another 7 minutes, when Joe Clarke, who had come onto the wing to replace Nick Harris some 10 minutes earlier marked his return from injury with a try, touching down from a cute grubber kick by Coleman. The conversion attempt from the touchline went narrowly wide. Gravesend were undaunted, however, and proceeded to dominate the final ten minutes of the game, again going through many phases, thereby depriving the home side of any worthwhile possession. Eventually the resultant pressure on the home line was made to tell through a good try in the centre, as Stortford's defence was stretched to breaking point. Dorton's conversion took the score to 40-28 and effectively brought the game to a close.

This was in the end a good win by a side that managed to fire on all cylinders only intermittently, but did so to very good effect. Next week sees a change of focus with an away Herts Cup Semi Final at local rivals, Hertford, with a difficult return to league action the following week away to Dorking.