Chinnor 32 Bishop's Stortford1st XV 29

Stortford started strongly, dominating possession and territory for the first five minutes of the game, but an unfortunate series of events suddenly put them very much on the back foot. First, poor management of the ball at a maul driving towards the Chinnor line well inside the home 22 yielded a soft turnover, and almost immediately, Luis Ball received a bad blow to the head at a breakdown and had to leave the field. Worse was soon to come, when backrow replacement, Brad Etherington had to be helped off the field after an ankle injury, within only a couple of minutes' play.

Chinnor soon took advantage of the resultant disarray in the Stortford ranks, with two converted tries after 12 and 14 minutes. The first came from a badly missed tackle in centre field and the second arose, as space was created all to easily out wide, after a lost Stortford lineout and Kieran Goss had the pace to finish with ease. It took a while for the visitors to regain their composure, but they dug deep and rocked Chinnor with a converted try of their own from Chris Smith after half an hour. The winger had made an initial break himself into the home 22 and was then on hand to take a smart switch pass from Brad Burr to go in under the posts, giving Tom Walker an easy conversion. The game continued to swing to and fro in an often unstructured way, with both sides mixing some good rugby with often unforced errors. Eventually, Stortford established a foothold in the opposition 22 and, despite a loose ball from the second of two 5 metre lineouts in succession, momentum was preserved thanks to a Chinnor knock-on. The visitors won a penalty at the resultant scrum and quick ball allowed Mike Ayrton to touch down out wide with first half time running out. Walker's difficult conversion attempt went wide, leaving his side 2 points behind at the break.

Stortford again started the second period stronger and this time were able to make a period of sustained pressure tell, when Sam Winter crashed over between two tacklers out wide with 5 minutes of the half gone. Walker this time made a good conversion to put the visitors 5 points ahead. Failing to take the restart kick, though, Stortford were soon under pressure themselves and, although managing to hold out one driving maul from a 5 metre lineout, they couldn't repeat the achievement shortly afterwards from an identical situation and the scores were tied with 12 minutes gone, after the conversion attempt bounced out off a post. With Stortford once again unable to take a good Chinnor restart kick, they were once more on the back foot and Chinnor's bonus point try came after 20 minutes from a dominant driving maul from yet another 5 metre lineout. The conversion was again missed, but flyhalf, Lawrence May made no mistake 7 minutes later with a penalty for offside, moving his team out to an 8 point lead. Despite a now faltering lineout, Stortford battled back and a great break by Winter saw the skipper almost to the Chinnor line where, as he stumbled from a last ditch tackle he found Smith in close support for his second try of the match. Walker's conversion brought the margin down to a single point and a penalty goal some 6 minutes later from the same player again put his team into the lead with 5 minutes to go. Stortford were able to scramble possession back after the restart and set about trying to work their way upfield with ball in hand. Unfortunately, Chinnor were awarded a penalty at a breakdown, when the match officials overlooked a home player flying over the top of the ruck, impairing the chances of Stortford's support players clearing out the next man in, who successfully clamped on the ball. The penalty duly went to touch and, although the visitors' pack was able this time to prevent a try directly from the resultant maul, quick ball down the line gave Chinnor's winger, Jason Worrall just enough room to plunge over out wide through the last tackle. With only a 3 point deficit, the Stortford team hurled themselves back onto the attack, with their backs again looking threatening. Once again, though the home side got the benefit of a crucial decision, as the referee deemed a loose ball to have been a knock-on by the visitors, which brought the game to a rather tame conclusion.