Upminster BC Festival

After a busy month of festivals, last weekend saw Bishop’s Stortford field two teams in the Upminster Festival.

The B team got off to an encouraging start with a 3-1 win over the home team, Upminster Hawks. Next came a closely-fought, try-heavy match against Braintree, which ended 5-5. A draw followed (4-4) as our B team faced Westcliff. The last match pitched the B team against OAs, always a tricky opponent. Despite some excellent play our boys ended the match 3-5 down.

From the B team’s pool, the OAs and Westcliff went through to the play-offs. Stortford just missed out on a place in the runners-up play-offs, scoring the same number of points as Westcliff (both sides won one, drew two and lost one). The runner up of the pool was decided by number of tries with Westcliff having scored 16 against Stortford’s 15!

Well done to Alex Payling, Finlay Quinn, George Taylor, Leo Gosling, Oliver McCrae, Oscar Poyser, Samuel Hewett and Thomas Boylan.

Our less experienced C team (all but one of the C team players joined the club this season) got off to a difficult start, losing to home team Upminster (3-7) then eventual winners Barking (1-3). They then faced the much-feared OAs, to whom they lost 2-5. OAs eventually finished in 2nd place in the pool. The team put in a spirited performance against Hertford 2, ending 2-4 down, but redeemed themselves with a win over Hertford 3 (2-1) thanks in part to some excellent defence which saw off a sustained attack at the end of the match.

Well done to Alastair Craig, Alfie Dromard, Benjamin Hewett, Caleb O'Neill, Danny Abery, Jack Harris, Joel Balestra O'Dare and Tristan Thomas.