Stortford picked up today, where they'd left off last week against Clifton, with the pack in rousing form and determined to take advantage of the strong and gusting wind blowing diagonally in their favour. The team dominated possession and territory for almost the whole half, on the back of some excellent tactical kicking from George Cullen and Tom Coleman and the home side were forced to concede a number of early penalties at breakdowns. It was almost inevitable that a yellow card was going to result, as it duly did after 15 minutes, when loosehead prop, Nick Porter was binned for an offence at a maul, as Stortford threatened to score through repeated phases. Opting for a scrum, rather than the kick, there was little that OEs could do to prevent a try, as scrumhalf whiffen took the ball from the advancing scrum and fed Marcus Cattell a short ball for the centre to crash over. Cullen made a good conversion in the difficult conditions to take his side out to a 7 point lead. OE's ability to get in quickly over a tackled player had already been in evidence and, from the restart, they managed to isolate a Stortford player and the referee was quick to award a penalty for holding on. Fortunately for the visitors, the home team's ace kicker, Tom White's goal attempt flew wide and Stortford then resumed their control of the game, as their pack became increasingly dominant at scrum time. It took almost another 15 minutes, though, before they were able to break down the stubborn OEs' defence, when Chris Aldam - again forming a strong and determined second row with his twin, Dave - forced his way over from the base of the umpteenth maul driving at the home line, after a 5 metre lineout, following another OEs' penalty. Cullen converted, as he did again in the 43rd minute, after hooker, Tom Crozier touched down to round off another series of driving mauls, set up by a lineout won against the throw, following an excellent long touch find by Coleman. 0-21 at half time.

Stortford maybe rued their decision to stay out in the biting wind through the halftime break, when the ball was spilled from the restart kick with a mistake that looked suspiciously like the work of frozen fingers. OEs were quick to take advantage, and, spun the ball out, with blindside wing, RJ Bennett cutting a good line to break a tackle for one of his teammates to score a try. White kicked an excellent conversion to narrow the deficit to 14 points, with 38 minutes of the game still to go and the wind now in his side's favour. Stortford had to do their own stint of defending now, but managed eventually to force their way into the opposition half, via a neat chip kick from Coleman, well gathered by Cattell. A penalty was awarded to Stortford for what was thought to have been a high tackle and, to the vocal dismay of the home supporters, the culprit, fullback, Rob White was yellow carded for the offence. During the sin-bin period, the match-clinching, bonus point try was scored for the visitors by winger, Nick Hankin, who rounded off some judicious expansive rugby after more hard groundwork by the forwards, by outpacing the cover defence to run in from some 25 metres to take the score to 7-26. Cullen's conversion attempt unluckily rebounded off a post. With the pack continuing to have a strong edge in the set scrums, Stortford managed to win much more territory playing into the wind than had OEs, but it was the home side that enjoyed the final score, after 38 minutes of the half, when they spun the ball quickly wide, after their forwards had gone close with a driving maul and caught the visitors' defence on the hop. Another good kick by White took the final score to14-26.

With Canterbury today achieving a good victory over previously third-placed Taunton, next week's home match against the Kentish Men - or is that men of Kent?! - looks like another demanding fixture, but one, which Stortford will be relishing after another storming team display.