Stowmarket 18

Upminster 24

This scoreline flattered Stowmarket as the Suffolk hosts were far behind Upminster in terms of attitude and intensity from the very start.

This was most obvious in the tackling and the threat in the final third. Quite simply the visitors scored when they held territory and Stowmarket contrived to knock-on, fumble or pass to defenders when in the same position.

This was a massive missed opportunity. The pack in the scrum were superb, but the forwards struggled compared to recent weeks because of a malfunctioning line-out and a refusal of too many to engage in a ruck.

Forwards strung out in the backs is all very well after a number of phases but it meant Upminster dominated the contact area, and with very few players.

Their number five, a bullocking runner, spent the entire match at inside centre punching big holes upfield. He could do this because he was not needed for the nitty-gritty work.

As Stowmarket tired, he dominated. It was a converted score apiece after 30 minutes but then two tries in five minutes stunned the home team.

It was dominance and a taste of things to come as Upminster bossed the first quarter of the second half and added another to make the score 24-10.

Stowmarket rallied in the dying minutes with a try by Kieran Wilding and a final penalty by Dan Garrard but the game had been lost long before and deservedly so.