Two bonus points for Bishop’s Stortford in 39-32 defeat at Blackheath in National 1
Bishop’s Stortford wrapped up a couple of pre-Christmas bonus points in a frantic 39-32 defeat at Blackheath in National 1 on Saturday (December 21).
The fifth-placed hosts deservedly came out on top after generally playing with a little more purpose and control, but the visitors did not return home empty-handed as they ran in four tries and finished within seven points of their opponents.
Tom Coleman’s team, who sit eighth, have a well-earned break before entertaining Birmingham Moseley at Silver Leys on Saturday January 11.
Despite playing into a strong wind, Blackheath went three points ahead in the first minute after Stortford were penalised almost straight from the opening dropout.
Stortford soon took the lead with an unconverted try to Alex Gilham after a quickly-taken penalty had stretched the home defence.
The gap was extended to nine points when Alex Rayment touched down after a good spell of Stortford pressure and Dan Powell had drawn in the last defender. Chris Bolton made an excellent conversion from the touchline.
The home side bounced back with their own unconverted try with only 15 minutes gone when, with scrum-half Jordan Burns pulling the strings, they clinically exposed Stortford’s lack of cover down the short side to give the right wing a clear run in.
Tom Mills kicked a long penalty goal on 21 minutes to put the visitors seven points up, but the deficit was narrowed to two seven minutes later from a driven lineout maul after a big Stortford error, carrying the ball out of their 22 before kicking directly into touch.
A sustained spell of Stortford pressure, built around a dominant scrum, was frustrated by stout Blackheath defence and the visitors settled for Bolton’s penalty goal.
Unable to clear their lines from the restart kick, Stortford invited the opposition onto them again and three strong thrusts stretched the defence, capitalised on to the full by a clever grubber kick which allowed the left wing to gather the ball and go over untouched for a try. The conversion took Blackheath into the break ahead for the first time, albeit by only two points.
Burns demonstrated perfectly within two minutes of the restart how to exploit the strong following wind, putting a long, rolling 50-22 kick to within five metres of Stortford’s line. The visitors were soon penalised and Blackheath added three points to their tally.
The visitors seemed to have a let-off after 51 minutes when an easy penalty shot crashed against an upright, but a further successful shot three minutes later stretched the home lead to eight.
This became 15 when another kick straight into touch put Blackheath on the front foot and more forceful, driving rugby took them to a ruck on Stortford’s 22. Quick thinking by their hooker took him through a gap in the cover defence directly behind the breakdown to scamper over under the posts.
A great solo try from replacement scrum-half Declan Murphy got Stortford back into the game, stepping his way over from 30 metres out. David Hayes added the extras.
The visitors looked to be out of the contest when two further penalties were added by Blackheath’s Tom Fitch as his side piled on the pressure.
Undaunted, Stortford fought back and managed to string some fluid handling together to test the opposition defence. This was rounded off by Murphy sprinting over from 20 metres out and Hayes added the crucial conversion to narrow the deficit to seven points.
Stortford: Hayes, Mills, Biard, Pope, Gilham, Powell, Bolton; Hill, Rayment, Peck, Ferguson, Jones, Langworthy, Johnson, Rogers. Replacements: Bell, Coyne, Charter, Murphy, Reynolds-West.
