Early Stortford pressure brought them 3 points from Tom Coleman's boot after 5 minutes, when Henley were penalised for not releasing a tackled player. The home side continued to press but, having opted for a scrum instead of a penalty inside the visitors' 22 on 12 minutes,, were penalised at the set piece and the momentum swung back temporarily in Henley's favour. They took full advantage of this, however and when Sean Edwards again found disfavour with the referee - this time in hos own 22 - a penalty kick to the corner and strong driving maul from the resultant lineout brought the first try of the game. Stortford's "all-court" pressing game now came to the fore though and aggressive tackling with quick line speed and ambitious running and passing allowed the home side to dominate the rest of the half. This brought two penalty shots at goal for Coleman after 24 and 26 minutes, the second of which was successful and took his side into a one point lead. This was, though small consolation for a try disallowed immediately before, when Arran Mahoney was deemed to have been stopped just short of the line, following great drives from Mark McCraith and Steve Ball. A major turning point occurred on 35 minutes, when a penalty in midfield against Stortford was reversed for violent retaliation by Henley's 6, who was yellow-carded for the offence. As Stortford piled on the pressure, the visitors were, perhaps lucky to escape another sin-binning, after they received a team warning for repeated offences at breakdowns. Two successive penalties against the visitors were put into touch near the 5 metre line and the second brought a try to Marcus Cattell, crashing over from close quarters, after another short drive off the back of a maul by Ball. Coleman converted to take the halftime score to 13-5.

Inevitably, Henley emerged for a halftime dressing down, which apparently reverberated through the clubhouse, with all guns blazing. Aided by some soft Stortford turnovers they started to dominate possession and territory and progressively the home side's sterling efforts started to wilt. It took a great last ditch half tackle by Nick Hankin and equally good cover from Mahoney to prevent an early try, but Henley's now more determined tackling thwarted Stortford's attempts to run out of defence. After 8 minutes of the half, more pressure in the home side's 22 forced a penalty for crossing, as Coleman desperately tried to run out poor ball, he had been looking to kick. Flyhalf, Comben gratefully accepted the resultant 3 points, which served to further galvanise the visitors' increasingly dominant efforts in most aspects of the game, with the set scrum becoming an ever greater weapon. Henley duly took the lead after17 minutes, going for the corner from a penalty at a scrum and driving over with a second thrust from a lineout some 10 metres from the Stortford line. Somewhat surprisingly, the relatively easy conversion attempt flew wide leaving the scores tied at 13-13. Stortford did briefly threaten to bounce back, following a great chip kick by Coleman from inside his own 22, which was well fielded by Hankin, who made ground before winning a now rare penalty at the resultant breakdown. The kick to touch took the home side into the opposition's 22 for possibly the only time in the half and, unfortunately the threat was ended with another soft turnover at a ruck. It was now only a matter of time before the constant pressure being applied by Henley paid further dividends, but these were restricted to two further penalties after 35 and 40 minutes, as a visibly tiring Stortford side were penalised at breakdowns.

A bonus point won which, on the overall balance of play against a strong Henley side, was probably a fair outcome but, as the scoreline suggests, the differences between the sides are small - and certainly much smaller than the gap between the levels of resources available to the two clubs! The visitors were clearly delighted to have snatched this late victory to maintain their unbeaten record.