The first real question I had to face on Saturday from the home alickadoos - who laid on such a very good lunch for us - was why our two representatives in the prestigious Mickey Steele Bodger XV in their fixture against Cambridge University at the end of November were not playing : not the easiest question for me to answer as I had no idea that we had even contributed players let alone who they might be! A little quick sleuthing, however, established that it had been Cameron Reed and Sam Glasson both of whom were indeed absent from proceedings who had had that honour. As amateur sportsmen playing for a club with - as it happens - true Corinthian origins - Civil Service Football Club - it is of course their privilege to take an extended Christmas break in Cairo or Canterbury or indeed wherever the fancy takes them! And good luck to them and congratulations on their MSB appearance ( lost narrowly 14-17 and nice stash by the looks of it !) but that is not to say that their absence as well as that of others in the pack did not present something of a challenge for the Stags who were taking on a side with eight consecutive victories behind them, including recent wins against both Dorking and Ampthill.

As it was, the Stags opened brightly with power and poise, retaining possession and probing for openings with Stortford not getting so much as a sniff of the ball initially. It was impressive stuff and any any pre-match fears as to how the front five, shorn of so many regulars, might cope appeared to have been dispelled, as our ball was even being produced relatively cleanly from the set scrummage . After eight minutes of this apparent softening-up process a mid-field opening duly appeared with centre Tom Mitchell the beneficiary and Scott Hadden converting. Even just forty minutes playing like that and the game as a contest would surely be over!

Unfortunately - as is so often the way - this purple patch did not last and did not return : the home side struck back only minutes later when a slip by a would-be tackler appeared to be what allowed Stortford centre, John Stocker, to skip through off first phase ball for a simple score, also converted. And it soon got considerably worse for CS with a penalty goal and a further converted try quickly conceded : the try this time created by centre Stocker whose miss pass allowed left wing Chris Rea to comfortably round what was left of the CS defence.

Although the CS ship steadied somewhat at this point , that initial dominance of possession was a distant memory and a third unconverted try was conceded on the half hour , this time scored by right wing Nick Harris. The scrum was still holding up manfully, however, and possession now being shared more or less evenly. A weak Stortford clearance under pressure was seized upon to good effect and the home side was forced to concede a penalty, converted by Hadden, and the gap thereby closed to 22-10 at half time.

Again the Stags started the half brightly but this time were left with nothing to show for it and indeed there was no score of any kind until almost the end of the third quarter when Stortford stretched their lead through a fairly straight forward No 8 pick up and drive from a 5 metre scrum, complemented by the simple conversion .

At this point the Stags had a mountain to climb but they set about doing just that. Good ball retention and the efforts of a pack now strangely apparently growing stronger and certainly starting to give the home side a nudge in the set - even stealing a couple of tight heads in the process - provided the platform for two tries both scored by forward efforts wide out, the first by No 8 Daniel Brown, the second by hooker and Norwegian international James Bunkle , standing in to good effect for skipper Darryl Gore and thereby adding to the front row's impressive try tally for the season to date.

Those two tries went unconverted, however, and with ten minutes to go Stortford led 29-20. The efforts of CS's - on paper hardly first choice - pack were the more remarkable as the team's only ever present player this season, lock Arno van der Spek, had been stretchered off after a considerable wait and a prolonged examination. The away contingent knew that it would take quite a catastrophe to see Arno leave the field at all, let alone on a stretcher. The damage it emerged later is of the medial ligament variety and he is able to walk but it remains to be seen what exactly the severity of the injury might be - and ligament injuries can of course sometimes have worse consequences than fractures.

With Arno's departure one potential weapon in CS's usual forward armoury, the driving line-out, was removed from the equation for good but, in truth, it had not really been in evidence all afternoon and it is in that rather important respect that the Steele Bodger duo and the other absentees were perhaps most missed. Line-outs that on other days might have brought scores did not trouble the home side as any attempt at a drive was easily contained.

Still, with ten minutes to go and the gap just nine points, the Stags had plenty to play for: a possible four try bonus point as well as a losing bonus point or - if they could score twice - possibly even the win! The realisation of the third of those permutations was rendered impossible when - on what was by now a rare visit to CS territory - the home side was awarded a very kickable penalty which home and away spectators alike fully expected them to elect to seek to kick to put the game further out of their visitors' reach : instead - in a truly virtuoso moment - an inch perfect kick by fly half Tom Coleman found left wing Rea leaping high to take the ball and dive over in the corner. It was the sort of effort that deseved its touchline conversion and might have been expected to dampen the Stags' morale. Not so : minutes later Ross Yiend was crossing the line as Stortford appeared to have decided that tackling was now no longer de rigeur and, indeed, CS even threatened a repeat in the game's death throes with that second losing bonus point still at stake after all.

It had been most entertaining and another high scoring game but at the end of the day it was impossible to argue with the fairness of the result or that CS's absentees had not indeed been missed.

CS Rugby 1863 scorers:

Tries: Mitchell
Brown
Bunkle
Yiend

Pen : Hadden
Con : Hadden