Chinnor 29- Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 27

The game started badly for Stortford, as the opening dropout was knocked on, despite the absence of any pressure from the home side and a penalty at a subsequent scrum brought an easy 3 points to Chinnor’s no 12. Within 3 minutes, however, the visitors took the lead, when turnover ball was exploited ruthlessly by Stortford and good interplay between second row, Mark McCraith and centre, Marcus Cattell saw the latter in for an unconverted try out wide. Better was to come as, within 2 minutes, Stortford centre, Nick Hankin seized on a quick ball from a sharp half break by scrumhalf, Arran Mahoney to beat a couple of defenders at close quarters and then outpace the cover to touch down close to the posts, giving Olly Walker an easy conversion to take his side into a 3-12 lead. The gap was soon narrowed to 6,however, as Stortford conceded a penalty at a scrum in their own 22, The gap was almost closed after 18 minutes of the half, after a misunderstanding in Stortford’s midfield gave rise to a forward pass and a scrum to Chinnor and good handling by the home backs, moving the ball from wing to wing and back again, produced a comfortable overlap for the outside centre to touch down for another unconverted try. Worse was to come, from the visitors’ point of view, however, and mistakes by Stortford in possession in their own half gave two further opportunities to Chinnor, each of which was exploited ruthlessly to produce home tries, the first of which was converted, taking the home team into a 12-23 lead. It has to be said that a couple of missed tackles compounded the earlier errors and helped to bring Chinnor back into a game that they were looking like losing at that stage. Stortford, nevertheless, demonstrated their indomitable attacking spirit to fight their way back into the Chinnor half and the second of two high tackles in quick succession not only gave Olly Walker 3 points for a penalty from under the posts, but also produced a yellow card for the home side’s outside centre. This took the halftime score to 23-12.
Turning round to play with the (albeit steadily weakening!) wind, Stortford started very strongly and, within 3 minutes of the restart the gap was narrowed to 6 points, as winger, Ross Bird touched down out wide, rounding off a multiphase move involving both forwards and backs. Within 10 minutes, though, some more weak tackling by Stortford saw the home side pressing well into their territory and a penalty for offside produced another 3 points for the Chinnor 12. The visitors now enjoyed their best period of control, but it took a bit of luck after 26 minutes of the half to produce a potentially crucial converted try. A good thrust from No 8, Steve Ball off the back of a 5metre scrum looked as if it had been squandered by a bad pass behind the first receiver, but Hankin was able to seize on the resultant bouncing ball to scoot through the off-balance home defence to secure his second try and his team’s fourth, bonus point-winning score. This took the visitors into a single point lead, but their efforts to defend this narrowest of advantages was not helped by a careless knock-on from the restart and, eventually, despite some stern Stortford tackling, Chinnor were able to force a penalty close to the visitors’ 22. The shot at goal ballooned high into the wind, but was deemed to have just stayed inside the near post by the touch judges, to give the home team a 2 point lead which, despite some fierce attacking play from Stortford in the closing 7 minutes, they were just about able to hang on to.