Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 17 Richmond 18

Yet again, unfortunately, Stortford started slowly and an ill-judged kick out of defence within the first minute presented Richmond with great attacking ball in mid field and poor defensive alignment immediately gave the visitors' scrumhalf, Toby Dabell acres of space out wide to allow him to canter in for a very soft try. Rob Kirby added the extras to take his side into a 7 point lead, before many spectators had even reached pitchside. The home side slowly worked their way into the game against an aggressive Richmond team and, with their set scrum going well, were able to exert some pressure of their own. Eventually a couple of penalties at successive scrums to Stortford, brought a 5 metre lineout and, although Richmond repelled the first couple of forward drives, Dan Elsom was finally able to dive over a ruck on the line to touch down with 21 minutes gone. Tom Walker made a good conversion to level the scores, but this lasted barely 8 minutes, when Stortford were stripped of the ball as they attempted to run out of defence, after resisting a period of sustained Richmond pressure and the visitors this time made no mistake in running in an opportunist try. Kirby this time missed the conversion, but he made no mistake 5 minutes later, when he slotted a penalty for a breakdown offence, as Richmond, once more piled on the pressure. This took the halftime score to 7-15, reflecting, after the flying start granted to the visitors, a hard-fought contest.

Stortford started the second period much more strongly and after 14 minutes were duly rewarded with a penalty goal from Walker, after a tremendous turnover at a tackle by Dan Elsom. Within 2 minutes the home side scored again, when fullback, Mike Ayrton ran back a poor Richmond kick out of their 22, slicing through the first line of defence and committing the last defender, before passing to his brother, James for an easy run in. Walker's conversion took his side into the lead for the first time in the game. Showing the pedigree of league leaders, though, the visitors threw themselves onto the attack and it took some tremendous backs-to-the-wall defence from Stortford to keep their line intact against a series of forward drives at their line. Eventually pressure was relieved via a penalty against Richmond at a breakdown, but this didn't last long, as Stortford were penalised for failing to release the ball at a tackle in centre field. The kick to touch took the visitors into the opposition 22, where a penalty for collapsing a driving maul presented Kirby with the opportunity to go for goal, which he duly did to take his side back into the lead with 15 minutes left on the clock. It was now Stortford's turn to exert the pressure and they hammered away at the opposition 22 pretty much constantly for the rest of the game. Richmond were not going to give up their unbeaten record lightly, though and they defended ferociously to see out the game, managing to avoid conceding any penalties within range of goal.

Our thanks go to Matchday Sponsors, UK Challenge and to Man of the Match sponsors, Tees. The award this week went to Tom Lewis for his unstinting graft at the heart of the pack.