Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 47 Redruth 15

Stortford started strongly for a change and were 7 points up after 5 minutes, when Nick Hankin seized onto a Tom Coleman chip kick, which successfully circumvented some strong Cornish tackling. Mike Gallagher converted and the winger was next on the scoreboard again with a converted try after 7 minutes, rounding off some good handling after a Sam Coleman line-break. Redruth rallied and were rewarded with a penalty for a scrum offence after 17 minutes. The referee regularly found fault with the home scrum, but after 24 minutes penalised Redruth at the set piece. Stortford spread the ball wide from the resultant touch kick and lineout and Gallagher passed inside to Sam Winter for the centre to show his strength, breaking out of a tackle to canter over for a try, again converted by Gallagher for a 21-3 lead. The fourth, bonus-point try soon came, when Gallagher touched down again, rounding off a sweeping move set up by a tremendous leaping catch by Jimmy Rea from a Tom Coleman crosskick, with Hamish Irving making a decisive break to set his winger free. The conversion was again successful, but the now rampant home side were brought down to earth a little, when Redruth touched down after 31 minutes from a driving maul off a 5 metre lineout, following another penalty at a set scrum. The conversion went wide and the half was rounded off with Stortford's 5th try after 35 minutes, scored by Sam Coleman, taking a pass from Mark McCraith on the burst, after a great break by the number 8ioff the back of a scrum in the Redruth 22. Gallagher maintained his 100% kicking record to take the halftime score to 35-8.

The second half was a much scrappier affair, with the visitors taking advantage of Rory Young's yellow card just before the break (for another deemed scrummage offence) to score a try after 6 minutes from another driving maul off a 5 metre lineout, the conversion taking the score to 35-15. Gallagher's hat-trick try after 23 minutes restored the balance, as he seized on one of a number of Redruth handling mistakes to dodge his way over the line from some 15 metres out. Ironically, he missed the conversion - one of the easier kicks he had had - to leave the score at 40-15. The rest of the half was pretty unmemorable, until, with a couple of minutes to go, Stortford managed once again to string some good passes together, which, with good lines being run, created room out wide for Jimmy Rea to dash round the outflanked defence for a well-deserved try. Gallagher this time made no mistake with the conversion to take the final score to 47-15 and his own tally to 27 points.

Overall, an impressive Stortford performance, from which the team can draw strength, when facing next week's undoubtedly bigger challenge at OAs.

Team: (Specially for Robbie Prior!) Rory Young, Declan Caulfield ,Sean Edwards,Hamish Irving,Matt Tomlinson, Steve Ball, Richard Gill, Mark McCraith, Sam Coleman, Tom Coleman, Johnny Neville, Sam Winter, Jimmy Rea, Mike Gallagher, Nick Hankin; Tom McCrone ,Dave Aldam ,Baxter Wilson, Arran Mahoney, Pier Dotta