Tonbridge Juddians 6 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 6

The game started in a persistent heavy drizzle, driven by a biting easterly breeze, blowing slightly in the home side’s favour. Despite this, Stortford started strongly and enjoyed much the better of the early exchanges. TJs, nevertheless were first to register a score, when flyhalf, Dan Hawkes kicked a penalty after 5 minutes awarded against a Stortford player for failing to roll away after a tackle, following a forwards’ drive from a lineout. As the visitors maintained the pressure through the worst of the weather, they were able to force a couple of errors and, twenty minutes in, flyhalf, Tom Coleman levelled the scores from a penalty for an offence at a set scrum, where his side were enjoying a useful edge. Stortford took increasing control, as their backs played some remarkably controlled rugby in the difficult conditions and were deprived of a try only five minutes later, when the referee misread the depth of the deadball area and disallowed a clear score by fullback, Sam Winter, touching down yards before the line, following a clever grubber kick by centre, John Stocker. Despite enjoying much the better of the rest of the half, the visitors had only a couple of near misses to show for it, the closest coming after 40 minutes, when winger, Wayne Child had the ball knocked out of his hand by a despairing arm, as he stepped inside the final covering challenge from TJ’s fullback, only yards from the try line. Given the strong edge that Stortford had enjoyed for the vast majority of the first half three all at the break was a disappointing scoreline from their perspective.

The second half started in similar vein, with the visitors pressing into TJ’s half. They continued to try and play running rugby, although the cold wind might arguably have called for greater confidence to have been shown in their pack by playing a tighter game. Nevertheless, the home side was seldom able to escape from their own half and, 7 minutes in TJs were penalised for killing the ball at a ruck. Coleman’s kick at goal struck the far post and, unfortunately bounced the wrong way. The home side eventually managed to escape their own territory by virtue of three successive penalties conceded by Stortford, but Hawkes was unable to convert the third from an eminently kickable position. The game now started to get more scrappy, as Stortford, still trying to play ambitious, expansive rugby began to commit more handling errors. After 20 minutes of the half, yellow cards were issued to Stortford lock, Chris Aldam and TJs’ flanker, Buster Collins for an off the ball scuffle. The points deadlock was finally broken only 2 minutes later, when Coleman again found his range with the boot to convert a penalty from the home side’s 22 line for a breakdown offence. From the restart TJs came back hard, though and punished a couple more midfield penalties by setting up camp in the Stortford 22. It took some tremendous defence from the visitors to keep the opposition out, as the home pack drove phase after phase, settling for small gains each time, but thereby retaining possession and exerting remorseless pressure on Stortford’s line. TJs came close to crossing the line a number of times in the last quarter but, despite having two more players yellow carded for penalties close to the line – backrows, Mark McCraith and Hamish Irving after 30 and 40 minutes respectively – Stortford managed to keep a now rampant opposition pack out. Eventually, the home side clearly gave up hope of breaking down Stortford’s defence and opted to take the three points from in front of the posts after Irving’s offence. There remained only a couple of minutes to play and the visitors managed to survive these – effectively the 20th -22nd minutes played a man short - without undue concern.

Despite Stortford’s dominance for the greater part of the game, the home side could easily have snatched a win in the final quarter, as they played to their strengths in the forwards, which were well-suited to the cold and wet conditions. To this extent, two away points were maybe not a bad return, though many of the large number of visiting supporters will have felt that their side hardly had the rub of the green.

Next week sees another away game, at Hertfordshire rivals, Tring where another strong forward display and similar high levels of commitment as today’s will be called for to avoid a repeat of last season’s outcome, when Stortford managed to squander a winning position in the final minutes.