Bishop’s Stortford up to ninth in National 1 with 45-34 win at Rotherham Titans
Bishop’s Stortford registered their second consecutive away win and their third victory of the season by triumphing 45-34 at Rotherham on Saturday (October 19).
The success over the third-placed Titans, which included a try-scoring bonus point, lifted Tom Coleman’s team up one place to ninth in National 1 and ended their opponents’ 19-game unbeaten home run.
They are now preparing to host Richmond, who sit second with an unbeaten record, at Silver Leys this Saturday (October 26).
The visitors started like a train and were a converted try ahead within five minutes. Rotherham were turned over close to halfway and quick ball to Alex Gilham put the winger into open space, with one pass inside to Chris Bolton seeing the scrum-half under the posts. Mike Cooke had an easy conversion.
The Titans struck back almost immediately with powerful thrusts from two of their big forwards making inroads, eventually setting up centre Jamie Cooke for an unconverted try. They were quickly rocked, however, with three more converted tries to Stortford in the next 15 minutes to bring up the bonus point.
The first went to Jack Biard, exploiting a big gap in their midfield to swerve outside his opposite number and sprint in from 30 metres.
Rotherham countered with a penalty goal before, straight from the restart, Will Rogers swooped for an opportunist try as the home side were slow to support as their catcher laid the ball back clear of the tackle area. The No 8 was the first to react, hacking on and collecting the bouncing ball to canter in for the try.
Then a penalty try was awarded for an illegal challenge on Cooke as he caught the opposition flat-footed to run at the line from a position created by his own 50-22 kick. Stortford were now rampant and it took a last-ditch tackle to stop Tom Mills scoring in the corner three minutes later.
The home side’s respite lasted only two minutes as captain Rogers went in for his second try after David Hayes ran back a Rotherham kick through the heart of the home defence, with Alex Rayment - who unfortunately got injured in the process - providing the link to his skipper.
Cooke maintained his 100% record off the tee to move his side 27 points ahead, but the team had to finish the half with a fantastic defensive stint as Rotherham’s powerful pack hurled itself repeatedly at the try line and produced a series of five-metre lineouts. Stortford dug deep, making tackle after tackle, and finally ended the danger when Ollie Jones made a clean steal of another five-metre lineout.
The second half was a very different affair with Stortford the side under pressure, particularly at scrum time, conceding a number of penalties at the set piece, and they added to their challenges with several, sometimes unforced, offences in open play.
The Titans exerted enormous pressure and repeatedly tested Stortford’s resolute defence. This resulted in a stream of red-zone penalties, numerous five-metre lineouts and two yellow cards which overlapped, meaning the visitors were reduced, for the second week in a row, to 13 men for a period.
The second card came after the home side repeatedly took scrums from penalties, with the Stortford pack, already under pressure, naturally unable to cope with only seven forwards. Rotherham pulled back three tries, but Stortford’s staunch defence meant they had to work extremely hard for them, running 33 minutes off the clock, while another penalty goal for Cooke kept Stortford 38-27 ahead.
A Rotherham forward was carded for going into contact and leading with a high forearm. And, running out of time, the home team made a crucial handling error as they tried to run the ball out of their own 22 and Tom Mills seized on the loose ball to tap it ahead and regather for an easy try, again converted by Cooke.
Rotherham fought back in typically robust fashion to end the game with a forwards’ try close to the post, but it was Stortford celebrating at the final whistle.
Stortford: Hayes, Mills, Biard, Pope, Gilham, Cooke, Bolton; Smith, Rayment, Hill, Ferguson, Kiff, Langworthy, Jones, Rogers. Replacements: Moffitt, Cilia, Charter, Johnson, Briers.