Stamford Rugby Club beat Stockwood Park in Counties 1 Midlands East (South)

Stamford stretched their lead at the top of the Counties 1 Midlands East (South) table to 10 points after a seventh successive victory on Saturday.

They returned victorious from their trip to Stockwood Park after a 24-36 success that continued their unbeaten streak against the Bedfordshire side.

Stockwood came out of the blocks at pace and got stuck into Stamford by trying to deny them any quality possession.

Stamford managed to contain the early onslaught and then put together some moves of their own.

A good take in the line out by Jack Jones was passed out to Toby Anderson on a straight run and he crossed for the opening try with Frazer Hutton kicking the conversion.

Town had now got the journey out of their system and were putting the hosts under pressure and a Park player received a yellow card for a deliberate knock on.

Stamford took a quick tap penalty and moved the ball fast and wide for centre Lewis Lancaster to score and extend their lead to 0-12.

It was Stamford who were running the game and anything Stockwood tried was met with a defensive wall that they couldn't break while Ian Downer was able to kick long to start another phase.

When awarded a penalty, Stamford broke quickly to the left and then switched the attack to the right with Ed Cox and Jones combining to allow hooker Harley Riches his weekly try and, with Hutton's conversion, the score was 0-19.

The home side responded with a driving maul and break to create a gap for their number 10 to score.

And then from the kick off Stamford were going forward when they lost control of the ball and a Park player, who looked clearly offside, gathered it and ran in a try which was converted to make the scoreboard read 12-19 at half-time.

When the second half started, it seemed that Stamford had lost their way for a while as moves were not working well and their normal fluid style was missing.

If something was said then it had an immediate response when Anderson broke clear on a run that took him deep into the home side's 22 and resulted in a Stamford scrum.

This is the sort of field position that Jones revels in and nobody was surprised when he picked up and burst through to score which Hutton converted to give Town a 12-26 lead and secure the bonus point.

Callum Robertson was then introduced into the front row and showed why replacements are called impact players.

His first action was to tackle a Park player backwards and his second was to take a line-out before peeling away to score a try that made it 12-31.

Stockwood Park, to their credit, never gave up and after working their way upfield scored a try wide out

But, just to emphasise their case, it was Stamford who hit back with a blind side break from a scrum and a perfectly timed pass to Hutton for their sixth try.

Stockwood knew that another try would give them a bonus point and they secured this in the last minutes to make the final score 24-36.

Stamford have a break from league action this weekend before hosting Spalding in a derby duel on Saturday, November 30.