Clifton slump at Bishops Storford

The home side are famed for the quality of their running rugby and their reluctance to kick but conditions on the day dictated a forward oriented game.

Last season when we visited Biishop’s Storford the ground conditions were very wet but this year it had rained heavily overnight and this persisted through the majority of the game.

After 11 minutes of forward pressure flanker Steve Ball broke from a retreating maul following a 5 metre line out and went over for an unconverted try.

The next try was scored by scrum half Sam Whiffen returning to first team action after two years out with injury supported a long break by No 8 Mark McCra1th to score.

A heal against the head under our posts saw McCraith set up a position for centre Marcus Cattell to go over with wing Mike Gallagher converting.

Having spent most of the first half penned in our own territory we managed at the start of the second to force our way into the home 22 and when the home side were caught offside fly half Luke Blizzard kicked a penalty.

Sadly the home side re-established their dominance and McCraith scored a pushover try. The try went unconverted but within 3 minutes an making light of the conditions a handling attack ended with Nick Hankin scoring.

McCraith scored again following a driving maul and replacement George Cullen added the extras,

We continued to battle away and reward came when following his own chip ahead full back Will Pomphrey touched down.

A disappointing afternoon made worse by be held up by an accident on the M11 which took the driver over his hours and after waiting for a relief we did not reach Bristol until after 11.00pm