CS Rugby 1863 20 Bishop's Stortford 29

With very little going right in their game from the start of the game, it was no surprise, when CS Rugby took the lead after 5 minutes with a penalty by flyhalf Scott Hadden, after the visitors were penalised for a breakdown offence. A brief counterattack by Stortford, following a quick freekick from a set scrum quickly produced a chance for Tom Coleman to level the scores, as the home side was pulled up for a breakdown offence. The flyhalf proved well up to the task, but the respite was shortlived, as the home side surged onto the attack and, taking advantage of some woeful Stortford tackling, established a 7 point lead 11 minutes into the game with a try almost under the posts by centre, Richard McLaughlin, which Hadden converted. It was perhaps surprising, given the visitors' inability to hang onto their own ball and a collective reluctance to make clean tackles, that the next score tok another 19 minutes to come. It was fullback, Brendan Ward, who made the breakthrough, touching down from a quick tap penalty, as Stortford seemed to take for granted that Hadden would have taken the easy three points on offer. He was left with an easy conversion to take his side out to a 17-3 lead. With second row, Dave Aldam having been yellow carded for the breakdown offence that had given rise to the penalty, the visitors now looked in serious trouble. Remarkably, however, Stortford now finally started to show a bit of confidence with ball in hand and this culminated some 4 minutes later with a tremendous try to Scott Romaine out wide on the left. This resulted from some smart - and short! - interpassing involving Marcus Cattell, Damien Sangster and Sean Edwards, who combined to give their hooker space on the left, from which he sprinted some 20 yards down the touchline and crashed through the final covering tackle. Coleman's excellent touchline conversion tokk his side to a 17-10 halftime scoreline, that hardly reflected the balance of play.

Stortford started the second half much more confidently, but a series of handling errors allowed CS Rugby to survive unscathed. After 12 minutes, though, the breakthrough came with a well-worked try finished off with a pinpoint crosskick from Coleman to left winger, Jonno Child. The opportunity had been created, when the home defence was seriously stretched by a tremendous break out of defence by centre, John Stocker, off a neat (and short!) switch pass from his flyhalf. Coleman slotted his second conversion from wide out to level the scores, but saw his team go behind again 6 minutes later, as Hadden kicked a long penalty awarded for an ofside offence by Stortford at a breakdown. The visitors now had the bit between their teath, though and it was only three minutes later (21 minutes into the half) that Jonno Child's second try came, rounding off a well-constructed move, as Cattell capitalised on a series of quick breakdown balls to make a clean break through the CS Rugby backline, commit the fullback and set his winger clear. Another excellent conversion by Coleman took Stortford to a 20-24 lead. After 33 minutes Stocker sealed his side's win with a good try, as No 8, Mark McCraith took full advantage of a tremendous turnover forced by an Edwards tackle to dummy his way well into the home side's 22, before giving the scoring pass to the centre. Coleman's conversion attempt from the touchline went only narrowly wide, leaving the final score at 20-29.

The home side can consider themselves unfortunate, having sufferd some disruptive injuries during the game, not to have gained at least a losing bonus point from a game which they had dominated for much of the first half. Stortford, on the other hand can gain some confidence from the way in which they bounced back from their early pummeling to produce some good, close-quarters rugby. They will need to pick up next week where they left off today for the visit to Silver Leys of table-topping Dorking.