Rams 35 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 31

Stortford started well and their 15 man running rugby saw them force a penalty under the Rams' posts with less than 5 minutes gone. Scrumhalf, Al Gliksten took a quick tap and, although momentum seemed to have been lost, good ground from Tom Lewis took them close to the try line and Will Palombo was able to drive over for a try, which George Cullen converted. The home team bounced straight back and their powerful pack won the first of many scrum penalties, from which, powerful centre, Connor Hayhow made a sufficient dent in Stortford's defence to create a simple try for a supporting player, with an easy conversion for Andrew Humberstone to level the scores. With the visitors making a number of errors, and play being stopped a couple of times for injuries - one crucial one, when Stortford were attacking the Rams' line - there was a crop of scrums, which clearly played to the home team's strength. They exploited their dominance in this area to build up a period of relentless pressure, scoring further converted tries after 18 and 27 minutes. Unfortunately, for the visitors, one of the injuries was to James Ayrton, who was unable to play on, which in a major reshuffle of the backline, with Jake Morris coming on at wing, Mike Ayrton moving to fullback and Nick Hankin moving up to centre. Despite this disruption, though, the visitors battled gamely and were rewarded with an unconverted try out wide to Chris Smith. This came after an extended injury break, when the hosts' replacement tighthead prop eventually had to go off, to be replaced by the starting prop, who had been injured previously. Stortford had a penalty under the home posts to restart and very bravely opted for a scrum, possibly anticipating a weakness in the returning player. Although not dominating the scrum, Stortford did manage to scramble the ball back and quick hands created a clear overlap for the big winger to crash over. The relief at scrum time was short-lived , however, and 8 minutes later, with time running out in the first half, another mighty drive by the home pack at a scrum forced the opposition back yards, giving the backs little opportunity to stop Connor Corrigan from cutting in from the left wing to score under the posts. 28-12 at the break and prospects for the visitors did not look good.

Almost miraculously, though, Stortford proceeded to dominate the next half hour. Cutting out handling errors, there were very few scrums, but even at these the visitors were much more competitive and the potency of their backs came to the fore, at times running the home defence ragged. As a result, Smith notched his second try with barely 4 minutes of the half gone, after Nick Hankin made good ground and fed his winger, who was able to stretch through a cover tackle to touch down out wide. Cullen's attempt to add the two points went just wide, but he produced a tremendous conversion from the opposite touchline 10 minutes later, after Morris did a great job in finishing off under pressure some slick handling by the inside backs. This had followed a period of concerted pressure by the visiting forwards on the Rams' line, which had been met by stern defence. Stortford tails were well and truly up and a major upset against second in the table Rams looked on the cards 15 minutes later, when Hankin dummied his way over for the bonus point try after clever interplay in midfield had created space out wide. Cullen again converted brilliantly from the touchline to take his side into a 3 point lead. Unfortunately a lapse of concentration at the restart gave the home side a scrum and, with refound dominance in this department, Rams forced a couple of penalties, eventually being awarded a penalty try from a 5 metre scrum. The referee also yellow-carded Louis Castiglione, leaving his side with 14 men for the rest of the match. Undaunted, though, Stortford fought on and replacement flanker, Dan Elsom almost scored a fifth try out on the left wing, but the ball was dislodged in the tackle as he reached for the line. Nevertheless, they were able to prevent any further scoring threat from the home side to come away with 2 well-deserved bonus points.

Hankin, Ayrton M, Keen, Ayrton J, Smith, Cullen, Gliksten; Castiglione, King, Harrison-Price, Thacker, Palombo, Lewis, Ball, Kingham.
Replacements: Huppatz, McCrone, Elsom, Morris, Banks.