With over 300 supporters for the pre-match lunch, the Club's annual U13s festival going on this weekend and our Blues playing in the County Cup Final at the Allianz Stadium, bar turnover will inevitably be huge, so what better match day sponsor to have than Bacchus, the local Club, named after the Roman god of revelry?!

None of the huge crowd that watched the game can have been disappointed in the rugby served up for them and, although Stortford's normally very stingy defence was not entirely in evidence early on, it has to be acknowledged that they were faced by a very aggressive and strong-running Bury side, undoubtedly boosted by their win against Champions, Cambridge last week. Thus it was that the visitors enjoyed the better of the first quarter, with an early penalty on 3 minutes, as they threatened the home line, to which were added two tries after 15 and 21 minutes. The first came from a strong and elusive run from powerful winger, Matt Hema, though it has to be said that the quality of a number of Stortford's attempted tackles was well below par. The second resulted from a great line run by No 8, Matt Edison, who burst through the Stortford defence from a tremendous long, flat pass to outstrip the cover defence for a try converted by Scott Lyle. In between, Stortford had scored a great try of their own, after 7 minutes, when Johnny Neville rounded off some tremendous team handling to crash over from a well-timed inside pass from fellow centre, George Cullen for an unconverted try. As the second quarter went on, the home side came increasingly into the game, but repeatedly failed to finish off some excellent chances through crucial errors at key moments. It, therefore, took until the 36th minute before the second Stortford score came, as winger, Jimmy Rea caught a pinpoint kick from flyhalf, Tom Coleman over the Bury line and ran close enough to the posts to give, Pier Dotta a better chance of making what was still a tricky conversion. The fullback was on the spot, because no 12, George Cullen had been replaced shortly before with a knee injury and he was cool enough to drill the ball through the middle of the posts. Bury were undaunted and swept back onto the attack, but this time the home defence held tight and, eventually were able to repel Bury, when Tom Coleman took a clean interception inside his own half. The flyhalf, didn't quite have the pace to make the line himself but, only yards short found Neville in close support and the big centre was able to force his way over the line close to the posts from a clever switch pass. Dotta's successful conversion was the final action of the half and took his side into a 19-15 lead.

The huge home crowd was treated to the heartwarming spectacle at halftime of a horde of their Mini rugby players, running round the pitch waving Club banners and clearly having a whale of a time. Possibly inspired by this display, Stortford started the second half even more strongly than Bury had in the first period and, within 11 minutes had moved out to a convincing lead with tries from right wing, Nick Hankin and No 8, Mark McCraith. The first came after only a minute and was created by a tremendous break by Sam Winter, returning off the bench after three weeks' injury in place of Cullen, after the ball had been recovered from an initial take by the visitors of Stortford's restart kick. The bonus point try had added significance, in that it ensured that Stortford would end the season in third place in the league. It may be their lowest finish in their three years in National Two South - equalling their first year's achievement - but what a record for a genuinely town team, with more than 60% of the 20 man squad being Stortford products! The second try came from a typically barnstorming run from McCraith who rounded off some more good team handling to burst over from 20 metres out. Dotta's conversion attempt from out wide and directly into the breeze fell just short, as happened again some 9 minutes later, when Winter turned from provider to scorer, though it was the centre that had in fact started the move, which led to his own try. Stortford once more became generous hosts when , only 2 minutes later, they messed up their own lineout 5 metres from their line to allow Bury's 4, Sam Bixby to catch the ball unchallenged at the tail of a shortened line to dive over for a try, as the home defenders were rooted to the line. Lyle's conversion took the score to 36-22 and, although the try seemed to give the visitors some refound momentum, this was met by a much sturdier home defence, which managed, albeit after many phases to force a turnover via a tremendous choke tackle, with Baxter Wilson to the fore. A penalty from the resultant scrum was taken quickly and a telling halfbreak and offload by Neville on the opposition 22 gave Winter an opportunity to dash for the righthand corner, which he duly made for his second try. Bury, though fought back and were eventually rewarded after several further phases, with a try to their scrumhalf, Graham diving over from the back of a powerfully driven 5 metre scrum, just after their extremely large No 3 had returned to the field. This brought the visitors a richly-deserved bonus point of their own and Lyle's conversion took the final score to 41.29.

Tees' Man of the Match award went to Tom Coleman, who orchestrated his team's perfomance well throughout and led by example making one notably thunderous tackle in the second half on a big, rampaging Bury forward.

To round off an excellent day for the home supporters, news filtered through from the Allianz Stadium that the Blues had battled back from the disappointment of losing a 3 point lead to a huge Hertford penalty from halfway, just as normal time was running out, to run out convincing winners, scoring 15 unanswered points in extar time - a fantastic end to a great season for our seconds, which has seen them promoted to League 1 of the Zoo Merit Tables to face sides like Jersey and Richmond seconds next season!

Now for day two of the U13s' festival!!