After the game, Andy Long was delighted with the way that his side had fought against determined opposition, who were always going to be hard to beat. “They made it difficult for us to play in the first half, but I was really pleased with our performance in the second half, when the boys really committed to what we said we would do."

Both sides understandably showed early nerves in this 3rd v 2nd battle, but Stortford shaved the early arm-wrestle and, despite playing into the breeze took the lead after 10minutes with a well-struck penalty by George Cullen, after Dorking were penalised for not releasing at the breakdown. A try to scrumhalf, Tom Banks 15 minutes later from an outrageous dummy, threatening to pass first right then left, before pirouetting to dive over under the posts took his side out to an apparently more comfortable lead. This followed a great driving maul and George Cullen's conversion stretched the margin to 10 points. The lead was cut to 5, though within 2 minutes, as Dorking swept onto the attack and confident inter-passing, involving forwards and backs saw winger, Gary Johnston over in the corner. The tense battle of wills continued, with the only further scores of the half being penalties swapped after 30 and 40 minute, which took the halftime score to 13-8 This scarcely reflected the clear edge that Stortford had enjoyed for most of the first half, but, having played into the stiff breeze, the home side could not be unhappy to reach the break in the lead.

Turning round with the elements now in their favour,, Stortford started the second period with a bang through a tremendous opportunist try by wing, Nick Hankin, seizing onto a clever chip kick from Tom Coleman on halfway to burst into the opposition 22 and step inside 2 covering defenders for a converted try after only a minute. The visitors were then made to pay for further breakdown offences, as Banks first took a quick tap to dash into Dorking’s 22 from halfway and then a 5 metre lineout from a further penalty saw flanker, Steve Ball over for an unconverted try at the back of a driving maul on 8 minutes. An injury to hooker, Tom Crozier resulting from foul play during the same maul, which resulted in a yellow card for his opposite number, proved very disruptive of the hitherto powerful Stortford scrum who, without a hooker on the bench proceeded to lose 4 of the next 6 scrums – 3 against the head. This, allied to some ferocious Dorking tackling helped the visitors to survive wave after wave of attack from a now rampant Stortford. Slowly, the rearranged home eight managed to reassert itself, but it took to the 33rd minute for the important bonus point try to be scored – from yet another maul driven over from a 5 metre lineout, with prop, Rory Young touching down. This again came from a Dorking penalty - this time for a high tackle, as Stortford stretched the visitors' defence with multiple phases of driving rugby from both forwards and backs. A great touchline conversion by Cullen rounded off an excellent team performance in the second half. The five points gained take Stortford up to second in the league - the highest position ever enjoyed by the Club - and left the large home crowd to celebrate long into the night!

The final, balanced words go to Longy : "It’s great that we’ve now got our destiny for this campaign in our own hands but, with 4 really tough games coming up, we can’t look beyond the next fixture at Chinnor and we will be preparing all out for this over the next two weeks”.