Continuing woe!

Basingstoke 13 pts v Bishops Stortford 36 pts

FX backed Stoke failed again to secure their first league points of the season with another home defeat to Bishop Stortford by a margin of 36 points to 13.
Failure to convert pressure into points and the giving away of too many penalties were again contributing factors to this disappointing display. The game opened up with Stoke infringing at the kick off and then conceding a penalty from the resultant scrum allowing the visitors to have immediate advantage in the home teams' half. It was not until 10 minutes into the game that Stoke had their hands on the ball to make inroads and by this time they were already 3-0 down with a fourth minute penalty for the visitors.
The away team were being made to look the better team as Stoke continued to give possession away with too many penalties against them and as a result were often on the back foot. This allowed the visitors to score two converted tries on 25 and 30 minutes. In the last 10 minutes of the first half, Stoke began to dictate the game and had periods of play in the opponents 22. This was rewarded on the half time whistle when stand in captain Evans opted to go for touch rather than convert a kickable penalty. From the resultant line-out a clean catch and drive resulted with Simon Appleby scoring to go in at half time 17-8 down.

Within 2 minutes of the second half starting Stoke were playing against 14 men when the visitors had their number 8 yellow carded for diving over the ball. Stoke didn't take full advantage of the situation, although playing in their opponents 22, the first four visits Stoke gave away 2 penalties and knocked on twice to allow the visitors to regroup and clear their lines.On one occasion Stoke were awarded a penalty which Brian Parsons converted to reduce the arrears to 17-8. With a minute left of the visitors being down to 14 men they ran a kick back at Stoke from inside their own half with some poor tackling from the Stoke defence managed to score a converted try and extend the lead to 24-8.
Some aimless kicking allowed the visitors to run the ball back at Stoke, which did not help the cause and put themselves under undue pressure. As a result they again extended their lead on 52 minutes with another converted try to 31-8. Stoke once more came back into the game playing the better rugby and producing a pattern of play that they have worked at. This was rewarded with a second try for Appleby, again from a catch and drive from a line out to reduce the deficit to 31-13. However it was the visitors who completed the scoring with a further try and 5 points on 75 minutes. Although this is still a young side it was nice to see the two academy players coming on, Northcote and Humberstone with the latter contributing a lovely break near the end. After Dixon commented "Whilst this was an improvement from last week it was still disappointing especially as we put too much pressure on ourselves when in the opponents 22. On the positive side the areas that we worked on last week, the line outs and mauling, proved successful as we scored both our tries from these situations."

Team: Parsons, White, Feausi, Rees, Van Jaarsveld, Lucas (Humberstone), Lilleywhite, Perkins, Evans, White (I) (Davenport), Wilson, Stirling, Appleby, Dixon, St. Bernard (Northcote)

link to RFU site