Bury gained their first win in National League rugby with a Jekyll and Hyde performance in East London.

Barking took the lead when, after Aaron Lowe was held up short of the line, the visitors were penalised from the ruck and Ratford landed a simple penalty.

Bury’s first meaningful attack looked promising until Lowe intercepted a speculative pass and raced clear. Once again Gavin Hogg’s men were penalised for collapsing the maul. Ratford landed the kick from 28 metres and Bury were 6-0 down.

On 13 minutes, Bury finally got a foothold in the game when Martin landed a penalty. Directly from the re-start Bury kept the ball well, recycling possession all the way up field before Tanimo Samoa slipped through two tackles to skip in by the posts.

Bury then incurred the wrath of referee Andrew Macneaney with needless or silly penalties and Ben Radmall was sin-binned for transgressing once to often.

Bury scored next, despite being down to 14 men. A pass found its way to Beau Gibson 40 metres out. The prop, battered his way through the first line of defence, swatted the next attempted tackler away and then still had the legs to outpace the final defender for an outrageous try.

Bury messed up the restart, were penalised at a ruck and then again for not being 10 metres, allowing Ratford the chance to make it 15-9 on the half hour.

Radmall returned to the fray only for his fellow flanker Logan Dodds to be sent to the bin for yet another needless penalty. Bury simply did not tune into the referee’s requirements and as a result they were masters of their own downfall. The score now stood at 15-12.

The ten-minute rest for Radmall did the trick as he blasted his way up the middle of the park. Gibson and Charlie Pask combined well to send Tanimo away in acres of space, and he fixed the final defender before slipping the ball to David Ormrod for his first try for the club. Will Martin converted.

Barking pressed hard in the last few minutes of the half but a great turn over by Gibson in his own 22 allowed Bury to counter. Will Martin weaved his way 45 metres down field and the support runners flooded through.

Ormrod, who had a very promising debut, took the move on before handing Dan Garrard the chance to race in from 20 metres.

Within five minutes, Bury extended their lead when Gouldie fioated an aimless kick down field. Gouldie found Martin in space and once again the full-back mesmerised the home defence before off loading to the supporting Radmall for a simple try.

Barking were awarded a penalty try, when the Bury scrum detached and then kicked the ball out of the advancing Barking 8.

Barking were dominating the possession charts, principally down to Bury conceding penalties but although the Claret and Greys had plenty of ball, they could not penetrate a stubborn Bury defence and fly half Ratford resorted to dropping a goal to bring the score to 36-22.

A penalty on 65 minutes, extended Bury’s lead to 39-22, but with just under 10 minutes to go substitute Ollie Forrest slid over after some poor tackling in the Bury midfield and suddenly the score stood at 39-27.

However, Martin added an extra penalty to make the game safe and give the visitors a historic win.