Starting with the strong wind at their backs, Stortford exerted early pressure and, despite the first thrust at the line being held up for a defending dropout, they were quickly back on the front foot and, recovering a partially-blocked grubber kick from Dan Powell, Tom Mills and Jack Biard combined to beat a number of defenders for the latter to crash over for an unconverted try with only 4 minutes gone. Five minutes later and it was Sam Johnson who touched down, after more direct, multi-phase rugby in the very testing conditions broke down the home defence. Tristan Smith had been injured in the build-up, but his replacement by Henry Peck did nothing to reduce his side’s dominance at scrum time. With 17 minutes gone, more Stortford pressure resulted in a 3rd try, with Alex Rayment touching down at the back of a driving maul after a lineout 10 metres out. This time, Chris Bolton was able to add the conversion for a 0-17 led. Not surprisingly, in the hostile weather conditions, both sides made numerous handling errors and, with hard tackling from both, scoring opportunities were limited. Stortford continued to have the better of the exchanges, but it was only as first half time was running out, that a further converted try was scored, with David Hayes reacting first to take a quick tapped penalty from another scrum penalty 5 metres out to dodge his way over and register the four-try bonus point.

Playing into the elements in the second period – with driving rain now added to the wind in their faces – the priority for Stortford was to try and control possession. They manged to achieve this goal in an encouraging first few minutes, but a loose defensive kick after 6 minutes, compounded when a good return kick from Esher was played on its way into touch, resulted in an attacking home lineout, which they exploited to the full to touch down close to Stortford’s posts to narrow the deficit to 14 points. The visitors bounced back, though and a crucial try was scored by Chris Bolton after 52 minutes, breaking off the back of a driving maul, after Austin Pope had come close from an attacking position created by a clever grubber kick from the same player. With Johnson in particular making a real nuisance of himself at breakdowns, Stortford more then held their own for an extended period, despite the hostile elements, but, ironically, it was from a particularly threatening run by Tom Mills, taking him close to the Esher line, that a loose offload allowed the ball to be hoofed far downfield, where a knock-on put the home side in possession inside the red zone. Concerted pressure led to a 5m lineout and the defence was caught on the hop by a quick break off the back of the resultant driving maul, with an Esher forward crashing over for the final try, converted by Tom Walker, on as replacement flyhalf against his former club. The visitors, though, had no real difficulty in seeing out the remaining 6 minutes without further threat to their line to seal another important win on a day when Rotherham beat leaders, Rams thus putting Stortford’s win up there earlier in the season in an even better light.