With the benefit of a stiff breeze in the 2nd half they rallied to pull it back to within a score, but Broadstreet finished the stronger with two late tries. Stour created enough chances but their finishing let them down, they were kept at bay by the unerringly accurate boot of Broadsteet outside half Ben Cooper who landed all 7 of his kicks at goal.

With Mark George & Eji Uzoigwe both recovering from injury Stour had Steve Blackburn & Chris Depper performing essentially fill-in roles playing out of position. Joe Murphy moved from scrum half to fullback, making way for debutant Jake Nash who had a lively debut but a stiff gusting breeze meant he struggled at times to link with half back partner Gary Dipple with whom he had had little training time together.

Stour dropped the kick off, compounded the error with a penalty indiscretion and saw themselves trailing after less than a minute as Cooper slotted his first kick at goal. The hosts were back on the attack soon after, fullback Andrew Murray straightening the angle of attack to perplexingly wrongfoot the defenders and score under the posts. Cooper struck again with another penalty shortly after, and with their scrum under pressure it looked like a Stour would have a deep hole to dig themselves out of.

They rallied, holding out the hosts until just before the halftime when Cooper struck again to secure a 16-0 lead at the break. Stour tried to apply pressure but were unable to sustain it through too many wayward or dropped passes. A blood injury on the half hour saw young Luke Cullen replace Blackburn, credit to him he made a decent fist of it considering he is primarily a loosehead. Murphy had one shot at goal from a penalty but scuffed it wide.

With the wind on their backs and their coaches halftime words ringing in their ears Stour started the 2nd half the stronger, driving a series of mauls towards the Broadstreet line that the hosts could only hold out by illegally pulling down. Referee Chris Bennett duly ran between the posts to award a penalty try and Stour were on the scoreboard. Murphy landed a successful penalty kick shortly after to put Stour within a score, and you sensed that the momentum had shifted.

Sub Sione Tu’ipolotu’s appearance on the hour mark added some much needed momentum, he breezed through a gap in the defences to find himself with a 50m run-in and just the fullback to beat, unfortunately the ball was stripped from his grasp in contact and the attack was repelled. Great mauling work by 2nd row Ben Hughes set up a turnover that saw winger Nathan Bressington clear with just one defender to beat, he opted to chip rather than feed the support runners and again a gilt-edged opportunity was spurned as the ball went dead.

The hosts looked to have forced their way over following a driving maul, but the call went Stour’s way when the referee’s assistant informed him the ball carrier had failed to ground it correctly. But back came Broadstreet, Cooper slotting his 4th penalty and eventually replacement Nathan Tilsley was worked over for a try with barely 5min remaining. Stour responded by switching to a high-risk game, throwing the ball around and the inevitable occurred when Tilsley intercepted a pass and hared off to register the final score under the posts. Fulltime 33-10.

So Stour slump to 12th in National 2, their lowest ever position since the leagues started. They will need to regroup quickly and have an early opportunity to re-find their confidence when they host winless basement side Stockport this Saturday, kick off 3pm.