Bishop's Stortford 1st XV 34 Launceston 7

The visitors enjoyed the better of the first 13 minutes of the game but, ironically, it was a contentious penalty against Stortford - for apparently failing to allow Launceston’s last defender to get to his feet after dropping on a testing kick ahead into his 22 - that created the position, from which they registered the first score of the game. A smart inside pass from 10, Jake Murphy from a scrum near the Stortford 22 allowed his winger, Karl Spears to cut inside and touch down under the posts for a try, easily converted by fullback, Kieron Lewitt. Stortford now started to grind their way back into the game and, despite a yellow card to their hooker, Will Roberts after 16 minutes, were able to force a penalty after 20 minutes, which flyhalf, Tom Coleman converted. Having “won” the sin bin period 3-0, the home side seemed to gain renewed confidence and were now definitely in the ascendency. This resulted after 30 minutes in an excellent try to winger, Jono Child, who seized on a great crosskick from Coleman and then forced his way over to touch down out wide, despite the attentions of three defenders. Coleman’s excellent conversion from the touchline extended his side’s lead to 3 points. Ten minutes later and a further 7 points were added to the home tally, when centre, Sam Winter cut an excellent line off a miss-pass to run diagonally past the last 2 defenders to touch down and give his skipper a relatively easy conversion. Despite some more excellent handling by the Stortford backs, the half saw no further scores and finished at 17-7.

The home side started the second period as they had finished the first and exerted more pressure on Launceston’s defence. Thirteen minutes into the half, a yellow card for visiting prop, Tim Mathias, soon followed into the sin bin by his flyhalf, gave Stortford a numerical advantage, which they quickly exploited with a try to centre, Jon Neville a couple of minutes later. Coleman’s conversion attempt from the touch line fell only narrowly wide. His side surged straight back onto the attack, but some tremendous last-ditch defence from Launceston prevented a further immediate score, although the pressure was now unrelenting. At this stage, further indiscipline by the visitors met severe punishment when second row, Ben Hilton was yellow carded for foul play after 23 minutes, quickly followed by simultaneous cards to both Lewitt and centre, Neilson Webber for preventing a quick penalty being taken in their own “red zone”. Once again, the home side were quick to exploit the now three-man advantage with the bonus-point try after 26 minutes to fullback, Nick Hankin, cutting a good angle in from the left wing. Coleman made no mistake with the easy conversion to take the score to 29-7. Despite having been restored to 15 men, Launceston remained under pressure and a desperate kick from within their own in-goal area after 36 minutes of the half flew straight to Stortford’s prop, Adam Gelman, who put his head down and barged over from about 15 metres for a try out wide. This was a well-deserved reward for a player making his first appearance of the season after a long injury layoff and lasting out the full game. Coleman’s conversion attempt again missed narrowly to leave the final score at 34-7.

This was a hard-fought win in testing conditions, which Launceston’s strong forwards would have relished and perhaps - particularly after their strong start - this accounted for some of the frustrations they showed, as Stortford progressively got on top.