Bishop’s Stortford lose 18-15 at Rosslyn Park in National 1

Bishop’s Stortford went close to what would have been a memorable victory at Rosslyn Park as they lost 18-15 under the lights in south London on Friday evening (November 8).

Tom Coleman’s visitors gave the fifth-placed hosts a real fright, but it was ultimately a story of what might have been in the National 1 contest.

Stortford, who picked up a losing bonus point and sit fifth from bottom, return to Silver Leys for a home game against basement boys Darlington Mowden Park on Saturday (November 16).

Stortford started aggressively and soon had Rosslyn Park on the back foot, swinging the ball around at high speed to great effect.

Strong Park defence and crucial Stortford errors, however, combined to keep the scoreboard blank until the 11th minute when the visitors stretched the opposition with a number of phases of quick ball, creating a two-on-one that allowed Jack Biard to throw a dummy and crash over in the corner for an unconverted try.

Park got straight onto the front foot from the restart and took three points from a breakdown penalty under the posts and Stortford proceeded to get on the wrong side of the referee, conceding a number of penalties, as the home side exerted a period of pressure.

This culminated in a tackle from Will Rogers in the red zone which was deemed to have been high and resulted in a yellow card for the skipper after 20 minutes.

Stout defence from Stortford allowed them to see out the sin-bin period without conceding and, aided by a couple of Park handling errors, almost got to the break in the lead. This was despite having lost fly-half Dan Powell to a foot injury.

However, another penalty awarded against the visitors at a breakdown as they drove out of defence brought a five-metre lineout to the home side and eventually led to winger Benji Marfo scoring a try to give his side a three-point lead at half time.

Whether shaken by this late change of fortune or simply cold out of the changing room, Stortford started the second period meekly and conceded a soft early penalty for a lazy, rather than dangerous, high tackle on halfway which took the opposition into their 22. This led to a torrid 25 minutes for the visitors as a combination of loose kicking and a series of further penalties gave the opposition chance after chance to attack.

Superb as the visitors’ defence was, Park took full advantage of two five-metre lineouts from penalties to add two more mauled tries after 59 and 63 minutes.

At this stage it looked as if the inevitably tiring Stortford defence might be overrun, but, in typical fashion, they fought back.

They registered their second try through Chris Bolton after an initial break by Charlie Briers had been taken on powerfully, almost to the line, by Tom Mills. David Hayes’ conversion attempt from out wide fell just short.

The momentum was now with Stortford and they put together another incisive handling move as Austin Pope and Biard made telling inroads to set Mills free to score their third try with four minutes left. The conversion attempt, which would have narrowed the deficit to one point, unfortunately went wide in the haste to get the game restarted.

The pressure was now very much on the home side, but they managed to resist some frantic attacking play and their relief at holding on to the ball for the last minute to end the game by hoofing it into touch was palpable.

Stortford: Hayes, Mills, Biard, Pope, Gilham, Powell, Bolton; T Smith, Bell, Bridges, Ferguson, Kiff, Langworthy, Johnson, Rogers. Replacements: Olver, Hill, Jones, Briers, Stannard.