Despite their lowly league position, Southend have recently beaten top teams, Henley, Taunton and Worthing at home and Stortford's narrow win today, when not playing anywhere near their best, must be viewed against this background. Desperate for league points to avoid the drop, the home defence was committed and aggressive throughout the game and, for much of the time, Stortford struggled to break the shackles.

In fact, a typically slow Stortford start to the game saw them quickly 14 points behind, with converted tries after 4 and 7 minutes. An early penalty gave Southend, playing with the fresh breeze behind them, possession close to the Stortford line and a free-kick at a scrum under the visitors' posts was taken quickly and one of their pack spun through a tackle to touch down. The second try came from a poor Stortford kick out of defence, compounded by one of a number of poor lineouts, which gave the home side good attacking ball and quick hands down the backline were enough to allow their left winger to force his way over the line out wide, requiring an excellent conversion to take their tally to 14 points. Despite this horror start, Stortford showed no signs of panic and slowly worked their way back into the game, going through many phases and making good ground, but never quite breaking down the stern Southend defence. The home side were, however forced to resort to a series of penalty offences under pressure and these eventually led to a yellow card after 25 minutes for their 13. Good ball at a lineout from the resultant penalty provided an ideal attacking platform, which was clinically exploited, as centre Jonny Neville crashed over under the posts from a switched second phase ball. Tom Coleman's conversion narrowed the points gap to 7, but he was unable to add the extras from wide out on the right some 7 minutes later, after Neville's second touchdown, rounding off some excellent rugby by forwards and backs. This had been started by prop, Sean Edwards and flanker, Richard Gill combining well in a two-on two situation out on the wing in their own half to launch atelling counter-attack. Coleman's conversion attempt fell short, but he made no mistake with a penalty shot 7 minutes later from a much easier position, after Southend were again penalised at a breakdown. This gave Stortford a one point lead and they were unlucky not to score another try just before the break following some more convincing 15-man rugby. It was Southend, therefore that were much the happier side to hear the halftime whistle.

Stortford started the second period strongly and might easily have been awarded a penalty try after a series of offences at scrums by the under-pressure Southend pack on their own line. In the event, though, the visitors opted to break from the last of these scrums as it was driving again at the line and two phases later, Steve Ball crashed over for a try after 7 minutes. This was scored just wide enough of the posts, though to make the conversion a testing one in the wind and Coleman's effort flew narrowly wide. The spirited Southend side now forced Stortford onto the back foot and, aided by some poor defensive kicking started to apply some pressure, which brought them a try after 13 minutes out wide on the right from a driving maul off a 5 metre lineout. A tremendous touchline conversion took the home side into their own one-point lead. Stung into renewed action, Stortford launched into a series of attacks and just when it seemed that these had been frustrated by a good Southend turnover at a ruck, great pressure on their flyhalf brought a charge-down by Ball, which Neville calmly collected to dive over for his hat-trick try and his team's crucial bonus point. Coleman's conversion took the lead out to 6 points and the match would have been sewn up some 5 minutes later, had a little more calmness been shown, following another charged-down kick in the Southend 22 - this time by Tom Crozier's face! The chance went begging, though and the home side took this as a signal to launch a concerted assault on Stortford territory. The visitors were now required to show their mettle in defence, as the Southend threequarters started to show new ambition and it took some fine tackling to hold them out initially. The home side showed considerable patience, though and were able to force their way over for their own bonus-point try out wide on the left after going through many phases involving both forwards and backs. The conversion, directly into the breeze was extremely difficult but, after the excellent effort earlier in the half from the opposite touchline, the large number of Stortford supporters collectively held their breath and its release was almost audible, as the kick fell , in the event, well short, leaving the final score at 26-27.

The scene is now set for a tremendous final league match of the season at home to the Cornish All Blacks next week and the Stortford squad will undoubtedly be preparing hard during the week to put in a much more convincing performance in front of what will be a huge home crowd, with over 300 already booked in for the pre-match lunch. Launceston appear to have been traveling much better this season than last, so the crucial win to clinch the promotion play-off place will undoubtedly need to be hard won.