Taunton Titans Vs Bishops Stortford

THE Titans turned in what for this correspondent was their best performance of the season to date only to suffer the frustration of a narrow defeat, 24-31, at the hands of their visitors, Bishop's Stortford, last Saturday at Taunton's Veritas Park, writes Dick Macey.

The Storts are enjoying their best seasons start since their arrival in National One back in 2017 and are now lying 5th in this very competitive league but the Titans had the satisfaction of wresting two valuable bonus points from the game through their four tries and the losing bonus for being within 7 points at the final whistle.    But the faithful were left pondering over what might have been reflecting on the minor blemishes in their game that proved to make the vital difference between the two sides.

Spurning the gift of three points from a penalty goal in front of the posts almost at the starting point of the game and then allowing their opponents to catch them cold with a blip at the very beginning of the second half - that plus a resolute Storts' defence that put in a real shift to repel the really positive thrusts from a determined Titans team throughout the game - sometimes catching the man by his bootlace to hold the Taunton boys at bay.

It all made for an excellent game of rugby, particularly for the neutral on a day that saw much happening as Taunton RFC raised their caps to our veterans and the fallen on their Armed Forces Day.

The Taunton scores came through tries by Sam Knott, Charlie Wright, Isaac "Sniffer" Dalton and Jordan Gott with two being converted by Iwan Jenkin and once again the admirable Charlie Wright was hailed as Taunton's Man of the Match and no one could disagree with that view except to add that the entire back row had a solid game with Toots, as usual.

The man with the whistle caused consternation when he showed a yellow card to Shai Bonnick for allegedly playing the man without the ball when he and The Storts full back both leapt at the same time for a high 50-50 ball and collided in mid-air - those spectators closest to the incident felt there had been an injustice and upon such moments results will often revolve.

All in all, a good contest with The Titans within a whisker of getting things right but no one could doubt their application and determination, the backs are showing real steadfast resilience, particularly Toby East and Freddie Fraser in the centre adopting a "they shall not pass" mentality.

They will hope to draw comfort from their performance as they travel up North this coming weekend to take on Darlington Mowden Park in their incredible 25,000 seater stadium.

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