Stortford got off to a flying start and were 7 points ahead after 3 minutes from an excellent Harry Marner try, slicing diagonally through the Bury defence, after a great break from a lineout in midfield by Tom Banks. Mike Gallagher kicked a great conversion into the wind. Stortford failed to drive home their advantage, though, with early season rustiness and impatience leading to a number of errors in the face of a determined, swarming home defemce. Bury eventually capitalised on this, levelling the scores after 20 minutes through a try to impressive fullback, Matt Hema, well converted by Ollie Snook. AS Stortford attacked again, Bury's No 4, John Hall was yellow-carded for collapsing a maul close to his own line on 26 minutes and within four minutes Richard Gill had touched down again for Stortford, seizing on a loose ball at a Bury lineout on their own 5 metre line to crash over. Another demanding conversion by Gallagher took his side's lead back to 7, but this was cut to 4 almost immediately, as the referee penalised the visitors for crossing after the restart had, for once been taken cleanly. The margin was stretched out to 11 points, though just before the break, with Sam Winter rounding off some good teamwork, in which Will Roberts, Banks and Tom Coleman were prominent. Another Gallagher conversion took the halftime score to 10-21.

Stortford started the second period falteringly and escaped conceding a try within a couple of minutes of the restart only thanks to a Bury error close to the visitors' line. Having appeared to have weathered the storm, Stortford proceeded to concede two soft turnovers in succession, turning a promising attack into desperate defence, which the home team this time exploited to the full with a converted try after 9 minutes. Worse was to come for the visitors, as they failed to up their game and a badly missed tackle in midfield required only a sound pass to the Bury right wing, Gary Andrews for him to touch down out wide after 19 minutes of the half. Snook's conversion attempt was well wide, but his team was nevertheless now one point ahead. Stortford now seemed finally to have been shaken out of their second half torpor and, with Will Roberts leading the way started to exert significant pressure, resulting in a penalty under the Bury posts, which Gallagher converted on 24 minutes to take his team into a 2 point lead. This was extended to 7 points only 4 minutes later, when the winger seized on a loose ball close to the home try line to touch down,, following several phases of hard running rugby from the visitors.He was unable to convert his own try. Stortford now continued to exert pressure and Snook was yellow-carded after 32 minutes for a blatant offside at a breakdown. Gallagher's effort at goal from the resultant penalty went narrowly wide, but this only delayed the next score briefly, taking the shape of a try to Nick Hankin, now playing at centre, who sliced through the stretched home defence, after an overlap had been created after 35 minutes. The conversion was again missed, but Gallagher made no such mistake 5 minutes later, following a penalty try, as a Stortford scrum drove for the try line and was collapsed. This followed another period of heavy pressure from the visitors, which had met further strong resistance from the determined Bury defence, but eventually it proved just too much.

With the benefit of this very competetive game under their belts and a few layers of rust left behind on the very lush Bury pitch, Stortford will be looking forward to their first home game of the campaign next week against local rivals, Cambridge, who also started with a convincing away win.