A SUBLIME opening quarter fired RAMS to a bonus-point 26-14 home win against Bishop’s Stortford in a game which featured a remarkable seven yellow cards.
The hosts came flying out the blocks and took an early lead courtesy of a rampant rolling maul, Max Hayman the beneficiary for his 10th of the campaign.
Will Partington made no mistake with the conversion, and his side doubled their advantage shortly after when a ferocious charge from the outstanding Axel Kalling-Smith took RAMS into the Stortford 22 before man-of-the-match Dan Swain powered over.
Partington again bisected the uprights for 14-0, and things got even better when scrum-half Ollie Allan matched Swain’s achievement in collecting his first for the club, the London Irish loanee hacking a loose ball forward before diving on it for the score.
Another conversion made it 21-0 to the hosts after 16 minutes, and the visitors then suffered a further setback when Will Rogers was yellow carded for illegally bringing down another maul.
The away side began to come into the contest in the second quarter, but with no further scores in the opening half, they received a second yellow when Harrison Langworthy was sin-binned for a no-arms tackle.
Harry Charter became the next visitor to leave for 10 minutes for again bringing down a maul, and RAMS wrapped up the bonus-point shortly afterwards when Charlie Robson nipped over on the right.
Replacement Connor Lloyd converted his own try for Stortford on the hour-mark, but RAMS efficiently took the sting out of the game to ensure a comeback was never really on the cards.
The final 10 minutes became scrappy, with two mini scuffles resulting in a further four yellow cards, RAMS’ Sean McDonnell-Roberts and visiting centre Austin Pope the first to go before Swain and Tom McCrone also finished the game off the field.
With both sides ending the contest with 13 men, it was the away side who had the final word as replacement hooker Alex Rayment crossed the whitewash, Lloyd again on target before the final whistle was blown.
Reynolds reflected: “Two of our stronger performances of the year have been against Stortford and it’s probably a compliment and credit to them that we’ve turned up and done well – it’s out of respect for what they’ve been doing.
“They were confident for the game and came here full of energy, it was potentially a very, very hard game, but our guys were superb in the way they dealt with it.
“The pack took control of the game and that was where the game was won. The physicality they showed and the set-piece execution was superb and got us the win.
“Our decision-making in the first quarter was outstanding. At the set-piece, the variety we showed was very good and while Stortford had a couple of purple patches which we knew they would, we did very well.”
And the DoR continued: “Ollie had been pushing for a start and arguably he could have started more, but he showed he’s going to be a quality rugby player.
“This guy is one year out of school and he’s doing this in National One – that’s no mean feat and he should be incredibly pleased with his performance.
“Dan’s been brilliant since he arrived. He’ll fall on any ball, he’ll hustle to get it and unrelentingly make hits and the other players see that. He was excellent.
“Axel in attack was fabulous and Scuba once again showed how good he is in the outside channel.”
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By Richard Ashton
