Plymouth Albion 39 Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 23

Stortford started brightly but squandered early territory with loose kicking. This was compounded by the concession of two successive penalties for offside at breakdowns, resulting in a 5m lineout from which Plymouth drove over for an unconverted try after 8 minutes. Stortford countered and Dan Cole put 3 points on the board 4 minutes later, when the home side was penalised at a breakdown. The visitors enjoyed a further period of possession in Plymouth territory, with Chris Smith prominent and it was the winger who was next on the scoreboard, touching down out wide from a clever grubber kick from debutant centre, Tom Mills to take his side into a one point lead with 27 minutes gone. The hosts fought back to score two further unconverted tries in quick succession on 35 and 37 minutes, though. The second was a real body blow, coming from a clumsy knock-on, when Stortford were looking really threatening well inside the Plymouth 22 and the home side took full advantage of the opposition's failure quickly to cover the mistake, with speedy interpassing between three or four forwards breaking the line to feed their left wing for him to run some 70 m to touchdown. They almost repeated the feat 2 minutes later and were prevented only from a further try under the posts by a tremendous chase and tackle from Mills. They therefore had to content themselves with a penalty goal, which took them into the break 20-8 up.

Stortford started the second half strongly and were rewarded after 3 minutes with another penalty goal to Dan Cole, followed only 3 minutes later by a second try to Smith, who intercepted a loose Plymouth pass on halfway to sprint in for an unconverted try. The home side bounced back quickly, taking full advantage of a long penalty kick to touch for a lineout some 10 metres from Stortford's line and scrumhalf, Jack Oulton found it all too easy to break down quite a wide blind side from the maul to commit the visitors' sole defender and put his left wing in for a try with 10 minutes gone. Plymouth's 13 was yellow-carded for a late tackle as Nick Hankin ran the ball out of defence on 15 minutes and it was the fullback himself, who took advantage by slicing through the hosts' defence only 2 minutes later to touch down under the posts to reduce his side's deficit to only 2 points, as Cole added the conversion. Stortford continued to exert pressure on the 14 men and camped for 4 or 5 minutes in the opposition 22, but it was at this crucial juncture that the game swung completely in a 10 minute period from the 25th minute. This started when the visitors botched a golden opportunity for a try from an attacking lineout, by allowing Plymouth to win a scrum, when Stortford, instead of breaking from a strongly advancing maul, opted for a secondary drive and allowed the opposition to get hands on the ball. So a potential 7 points lost for the visitors and, having successfully seen out the remainder of the sin-bin period without conceding again, the home side rubbed salt in the wound on 31 minutes by scoring a try out wide with the left wing taking advantage of a missed Stortford tackle to touch down again off a long cut-out pass. An excellent conversion followed, a feat which was not necessary when, only 3 minutes later, Plymouth were awarded a penalty try, after an attempted clearing kick from the base of Stortford defensive maul was charged down and the home forward following up was tackled of the ball. So a further 7 points added to complete an effective 21 points swing and Connor Lloyd onto the naughty step for the remainder of the game. Stortford battled on and gave as good as they got in the remaining 7 or 8 minutes, but the game, which so recently had seemed within their grasp had well and truly gone.