Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 33 Sedgley P ark 45

The first half was generally closely fought by two sides looking to run the ball at every opportunity. By virtue, though of Stortford's tendency to make serious errors, It was the visitors, that always had their noses in front, taking a 7 point lead after 5 minutes from a 5m lineout, after an initial drive had been held but a penalty was given for a high tackle and the second lineout maul made it over the line. Warren Seals converted, as he did all the subsequent tries. The scores were level 5 minutes later after a strong hit up the middle by Will Rogers sucked in the visitors' defence and quick hands down the backline gave Jake Morris space down the left, which he used to draw the cover defence and set Connor Lloyd clear to the posts with a well-judged inside pass. Another 5 minutes, however saw Park's 7 point lead restored when, under a penalty advantage for what looked like a harsh high tackle call, a clever chip kick and regather saw fullback, Oli Glasse in for the try. The scores were level again after 20 minutes, when Rogers plunged over from the fringe of a ruck, after Lloyd was stopped inches short. This situation lasted only 4 minutes, though, after a routine catch of a speculative kick was spilled by Stortford, who were penalised at the scrum and the resultant 5m lineout brought a penalty try and yellow card for Ollie Jones for collapsing the maul. The visitors stretched their lead to 14 only 3 minutes later, after a botched Stortford restart was compounded by a subsequent lineout error, which set a Park backrow running at the line, but Stortford were given a lifeline, straight from the restart, when a Park second row was shown yellow for a high tackle. This led to an extended period of Stortford pressure on the visitors' line, rounded off with Alex Rayment picking up on the fringe of a ruck to dive over for a try again converted by Lloyd.

With a deficit of only 7 points at the break, all was to play for but, unfortunately, the home side, far from being able to lift their game, became even more error-prone, with their normally solid tackling seemingly left in the changing room. Numerous first up tackles were missed, giving the hard-running but unambitious Park forwards easy yards and, inevitably increased confidence that support lines were worth running, even as they tired. Their scrumhalf also put in some telling box kicks, which the home side struggled to deal with and the combination of these factors saw the visitors run in two more tries and add a penalty goal to stretch their lead to 24 points with only a quarter of an hour of the half gone. Fortunately, at this stage, Stortford finally managed to rally and produce some attacking rugby of their own, so that their woeful tackling was not further punished. Indeed, they rallied to such good effect that a 5m lineout drive from a breakdown penalty brought a second try for Rogers after 69 minutes and a 5th try from the team to Chris Smith 3 minutes later, set up by two clever kicks from replacement 10, Dan Cole, the second a pinpoint crosskick to the winger, which allowed him to step inside two covering defenders. With 6 minutes left, there even seemed to be a possibility that the home side might gain the further score needed to secure the second bonus point, but, in the event, the visitors saw out the time with little difficulty.

Our thanks go to Steve Marshal and his company, Marshal Fire, Abbotts sponsors and today's Man of the Match Sponsor. The award went to Chris Smith.