Bracknell 12 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 18

Stortford had the better of the early exchanges, but two or three ill-judged kicks resulted in turnovers from good attacking positions and they were fortunate when, after 5 minutes, Bracknell missed an eminently kickable penalty. The visitors had been penalised for offside on a rare counter-attack by Bracknell deep into Stortford territory. The first score did, however, go the visitors' way when, after 15 minutes, winger, Wayne Child touched down after good interplay between forwards and backs in which Will Freeston, Tom Coleman and Sam Winter were prominent. Coleman kicked the conversion for a 0-7 lead. Hard tackling by both sides dominated the next 15 minutes and neither side really looked like breaking through. Play was punctuated by regular penalties and the home side took advantage of these to register 2 three-pointers by centre, Nowak after 19 (offside) and 25 (talking to the ref) minutes. Stortford missed a relatively easy chance for their own penalty as Bracknell offended immediately from the restart after their second score, but managed to extend their lead to 6 points after 32 minutes,when hooker, Richie McMillan caught the home defence on the hop by taking a quick penalty and driving over himself from some 10 metres out. Four minutes later, the Stortford lead was extended by a penalty, as Bracknell were caught offside. As Coleman was being treated for an injury, centre, John Stocker had to step up to the kicking tee and struck a convincing kick. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of former flanker, Tom Stokely who last season on the same ground proved himself to be an able stand-in kicker - albeit with a style of his own! The halftime whistle came with no further points on either side, leaving the scoreline at 6-15.

Stortford again started the half well and, after Dave Aldam recovered the ball, as Bracknell failed to control the dropout, a penalty was won by Stortford. Coleman was clearly still not recovered from his injury and a kick at goal was spurned in favour of a kick to the corner. Unfortunately, a knock-on at the resultant lineout gave the home side the ball. Despite their flyhalf clearly not firing on all cylinders, Stortford still had the better of the next 10 minutes' play and this resulted in another 3 points for Stocker, as Bracknell were penalised for not releasing in the tackle, following an excellent Stortford chase of a kick ahead, when a Bracknell attack broke down. Coleman limped off after 15 minutes and the resultant reshuffling of the whole backline, understandably upset what rhythm they had had, so that they were unable to capitalise on 2 yellow cards incurred by the home side. When, 26 minutes into the half, Stortford's Jonno Child was sin-binned, the home side were, in contrast, able to exert considerable pressure and were rewarded with 2 more penalty conversions by Nowak, firstly for a no-arms tackle and then an offside offence. The latter kick took the score to 12-18 and the fact that Bracknell took the 3 points suggested that they were happy to settle for a bonus point, which they duly won, when the final whistle went some 5 minutes later without any further score.

Bracknell are clearly much stronger than they were early season and, if they can keep this kind of physically strong side out for the rest of the season, they will have a very good chance of escaping relegation. This relatively narrow victory by Stortford has to be viewed in this light and, taking into account the absence on the bench of a ready replacement for their injured flyhalf, it represents another good result. Eyes now turn to our first visit to Westcliff next week!