Bishop's Stortford First XV 21 Rosslyn Park 27

Stortford got off to a flying start, with Harrison Langworthy breaking off the back of a driving maul from a 5 metre lineout to crash over for a try, well converted by Tom Walker. The lead was narrowed to two points, 7 minutes later, when scrumhalf, Dan Hiscocks sniped from the base of a maul after a Park 5m lineout for an unconverted try. Conceding far too many penalties, Stortford invited the visitors onto the front foot and, despite some fierce defence from the home side, good hands down the Park back line saw fullback, Joe Luca-Smith in for a try on 21 minutes, this time converted by Max Craven. Stortford battled their way back and, although unable to take control of the game, by virtue of their regular mistakes, did manage to retake the lead after 33 minutes, when Nick Hankin ran round to touch down behind the posts, after being put into a gap by a quick pass under pressure from James Ayrton. Walker again converted. The home side had to dig deep in defence for the remainder of the half, which they did, but retained the lead at the break only thanks to the visitors turning down 3 points from a scrum penalty under the posts, opting instead to scrum again, themselves this time being penalised.

If anything, Stortford's error count rose in the second half and two successive penalties gave Park another 5 metre lineout after 46 minutes and their pack was able to muscle its way over the line for a try to Isaac Miller, converted by Craven. Stortford again countered, with an excellent break out of defence by Hankin from a long Park kick, almost led to a try, with Langworthy taking the ball almost to the visitor's line, but their scramble defence managed to cover back and the home side couldn't recycle the ball quickly enough to deliver the killer blow. With 59 minutes on the clock, however, Ayrton did cross the line for a try under the posts off a clever chip kick from Walker, who added the extras for his side to take the lead again. The two point advantage changed hands 6 minutes later, when Craven slotted an easy penalty after the referee deemed Stortford at fault at a hotly-contested breakdown. A body blow came 8 minutes later, when the home side compounded the loss of another lineout by conceding a penalty for side entry at a ruck and the visitors once again drove Stortford's pack over the line from the resultant 5 metre lineout maul for a try to Jasper Cameron. Fortunately, the conversion attempt was pulled wide to leave the home side in losing bonus point which, after their counter-attacking efforts were once more snuffed out by errors was all they had to show for their valiant efforts.

Special thanks go to long-time Club supporters, Harlow Agricultural Merchants aka HAM for sponsoring today's Man of the Match award, which went to Nick Hankin. It's great to see some more characteristic elusive running from him, despite the weight of all those years he's now carrying around!