Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 14 Rams 26

Stortford started nervously, with the opening dropout carrying straight into touch to give their lofty opposition immediate possession, which they exploited ruthlessly, taking advantage of two penalties to pile on the pressure, with flanker James McRae crashing over for a try under the posts with only 4 minutes gone. Stortford battled back, steadily clawing their way into the game and were clearly the better side in the second quarter. In greasy conditions, handling errors were inevitable and periods of home pressure were twice halted by knock-ons. After 29 minutes, though, their efforts were finally rewarded, when Chris Smith rounded off some good back play, with Francis Moore prominent and ran round towards the post to give Tom Walker an easier conversion, which he duly slotted. With their tails now up, Stortford exerted more pressure and forced three consecutive offside penalties to drive upfield. Walker went for goal and was extremely relieved to see the missed shot knocked on by the opposition in their dead ball area to give his side a five metre scrum. Stortford's pack had been solid in this element of the game and duly produced good ball, which their backs used to great effect, with two players looping round and the ball moved slickly to allow Walker to plunge over close to the posts, giving himself an easy conversion and his team a 7 point lead at the break.

An early Stortford knock-on, compounded by an offside penalty at a breakdown gave Rams an early opportunity after the break and a quickly tapped kick saw McRae over for an equalising try with 48 minutes gone. Despite the opposition's clinical finish, Will Rogers was yellow-carded for a clearly ineffective intervention without having retired 10 metres from the penalty. His teammates, however, dug deep and managed to prevent any further score during their skipper's 10 minutes' absence. After his return, Stortford enjoyed a couple more spells of attacking pressure, but a knock-on inside the opposition 22 with 66 minutes gone proved to be very costly, when Rams ran the ball from the resulting scrum. Any threat should have been quickly snuffed out, but a first-up tackle was missed and with no cover immediately on hand, which gave fullback Henry Bird acres of space to run into and quick support from a couple of team mates saw winger, Jak Rossiter over in the corner for a crucial try, showing the clinical finishing of a top team. This was evident again 4 minutes later, when two penalties in quick succession against the home side produced a 5 metre lineout and the ball was moved neatly from the back of a powerful driving maul for Rossiter to dot down his second try, very well converted by Fraser Honey from the touchline. Stortford battled on and won their own 5 metre lineout with time running out, but, despite driving over the try line, were not awarded the try, which would have won them a deserved losing bonus point. The referee decided that there was no time for the goal-line dropout to take place.

Special thanks go to new sponsors, Quantus Gallery, for sponsoring today’s match and to long-term supporters, Hilton Group, who were Man of the Match sponsors. Their award went to Tom Walker, making an impressive first start at flyhalf for the First XV.