Stour keep Cornish at bay

A welcome return back to a sunny Stourton Park was just the tonic for Stourbridge as they crushed Mounts Bay to kick-start their season.

The new-look Stour side had kicked off the season with defeats away to big spending Cambridge and pre-season favourites Birmingham Solihull Bees so a visit from the winless newly promoted Cornish outfit was just what you would think Neil Mitchell’s young men needed to pick them up.

So it proved at the final whistle but only after a tight first 40 minutes in which the visitors held a well deserved lead.

Stour raced onto the scoreboard with a try inside the first two minutes after Martin Freeman (pictured) sliced through the opposition to set up fellow winger Tom Hughes.

Mounts Bay countered strongly and within five minutes had taken the lead. A successful penalty attempt was then followed by a try.

A midfield break by scrum-half Greg Goodfellow allowed full-back Andrew Birkett to go over for the visitors.

With 15 minutes gone, an Ally Bressington penalty levelled the scores with half-time approaching.

In the last minute of normal time the young Stour centres, Ben Barkley and Ollie Grove combined to produce a try for the latter.

There was still time for even more drama before the break when deep into injury time the visitors number eight, Nick Burnett, was red-carded for foul play.

Within 15 minutes of the restart, the home side had as good as wrapped the game up with tries from Freeman, White and Bressington. The first followed confusion in the Mounts Bay ranks when the referee ruled the ball had come out of the ruck. Stour’s Rupert Cooper was first to react, he fed the ball to Freeman and the winger’s pace did the rest. Duncan White was the home side’s next try scorer when he barged over after hooker Ben Gerry had been stopped just short, again neat play between the young Stour centres played a role in the set up. With this fourth try the bonus point had been secured. Stour’s scoring burst was completed when White’s chip was collected by Bressington, a little chip and catch of his own and he was away and under the posts.

To the visitors credit they battled on in the face of adversity and scored a push over try from replacement prop Adam Flide.

The scoring was completed in the dying seconds of injury time when Stourbridge ran in a super try. Excellent passing skills were demonstrated in a multi player move that saw a second try for Ally Bressington. In addition to his two tries Bressington added four conversions and two penalties to the Stourbridge tally but, for the man of the match, no one could fault the excellent display of Ben Barkley.