Richmond 50 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 40

Stortford started slowly and Richmond's powerful backs took full advantage of some slack early tackling to score two tries within the first quarter of an hour. The visitors pulled a try back on 25 minutes, with Harrison Langworthy touching down at the base of a try-line ruck, after a quickly taken free kick had caught Richmond on the hop. Matt Riddington converted, but the home side restored their 12 point lead only 3 minutes later from a long 50-22 kick, bouncing marginally in play, leading to a lineout drive over the line, extremely well converted by Sean Kerr, one of a powerful pair of centres, who threatened throughout the game. The scores were levelled, though, within 10 minutes with two smartly-taken opportunist tries. The first came from Chris Bolton, taking a quick penalty to catch the home defence napping for once and sprinting over from almost halfway. The conversion went wide, but Bolton nailed an excellent kick after the second try from a driving lineout maul, when a testing rolling kick from Riddington had forced a retreating defender to kill the ball at the breakdown. Having clawed their way back into the game, however, sloppy play from Stortford at the restart turned the ball over immediately at the base of a ruck and a single, simple pass was all it needed for Richmond to register another converted try. Not content with this, as first half time was running out, the home backs once again took full advantage of some more loose Stortford tackling out wide, to send their side into the break 14 points ahead.

Richmond were 19 points up within 8 minutes of the restart with a try from another driven 5 metre lineout, but 3 minutes later Bolton registered Stortford's bonus point try, after Austin Pope had driven a couple of defenders several yards back and then managed to offload from over the line for the scrumhalf to dot down and then to convert. Stortford looked more threatening with ball in hand after the break, moving the ball more quickly and less predictably. Richmond's defence, though, stood strong, withstanding several minutes of pressure on their 22. Unfortunately, the visitors' defence once more suffered by comparison with that of the opposition and two quick tries to the home side after 66 and 70 minutes sealed the victory. The first came all too easily when Richmond's 7 broke from the back of a lineout some 30 metre's out, dummied past the first defender and sprinted in untouched and the second also came off a lineout, when poor cover round the fringe of a ruck produced another easy backrow try. Having gone 24 points behind, Stortford dug deep, showing their usual fighting spirit and launched themselves into drive after drive on the home 22, forcing two yellow cards against Richmond's 7 and 8 for cynical offences at breakdowns. In between, Alex Rayment had crashed over for a try from the base of a ruck from a 5 metre lineout with 71 minutes gone. Connor Lloyd converted with a quick drop kick in the quest for further scores, but it took until the final minute for this to come, when Ben Harrison-Price forced his way over through three defenders. Bolton again converted to round off a topsy-turvy match, with the hosts running out deserved winners.