Playing first into a stiff breeze, the opening exchanges saw a Stour’s defences under pressure after a break by Sedg scrum half Callum McShane who was hauled down just short by the covering Sam Wilkes. They cleared their lines but had to scramble again when winger Sam Lowthian was worked clear, centres Joe Heatley and James Otutaha putting in last ditch tackles to deny the visitors who found themselves making handling errors under pressure.
The ball was fed out from a scrum in unpromising field position deep in Stour’s half, but Heatley had other ideas and hit an inside pass at full speed to wrongfoot Sedge’s defensive line. Clean through at halfway his footwork left the fullback for dead and he backed his pace to outstrip the covering wingers, scoring a spectacular solo effort from Stour’s first attack of any significance. 14min 5-0.

Sedg came back but got little change out of the Stour defence until a high tackle gave centre Matt Riley a shot a goal that he pulled wide. With a misfiring lineout and the scrum under pressure Sedg were finding themselves on the back foot, Stour kicking a penalty to touch from which they launched a set of short drives that produced a try under the posts for loosehead prop Stef Thorpe. Chris Scott converted, 28min 12-0.

With play slowing to the advantage of the defences both sides started to kick the ball for position, the kick chases smothering any counter attack but unable to fashion turnovers from which to mount attacks. Halftime 12-0.

The first scrum of the 2nd half produced a deliberate knock on by McShane that was penalised, giving Scott the most straightforward of kicks at goal. 43min 15-0. A no-arms tackle shortly after gave Scott another shot but from further out and it fell short.

With both sides struggling to find a way through the defences Sedg ran tap penalties and managed to fashion an overlap but were denied when flanker Joe Carpenter ran out of the line to smother the ball carrier. A rare Stour foray into Sedg’s 22 looked promising but an attempted cut-out pass drifted out of reach of and harmlessly into touch.

Stour rang the replacements and were grateful to see the lively McShane also substituted, but they found Sedg starting to string their phases together, an outside break by winger Jamie Harrison threatened but was defused when Otutaha gathered his cross-kick. A further patient buildup saw Sedg fullback Rob Holloway through a half-gap and Stour shipping penalties in their own 22, a quick tap worked to replacement Max Ashcroft who was bundled into touch just short by the challenge of Ash Elvers and Connor Nicholls. Stour coughed up a soft lineout turnover though and Sedg replacement Harri Greville barged over from short range, Riley converting. 70min 15-7.

Sedg attacked again from the restart but a promising attack was halted by a side-entry offence. Elvers fielded a kick ahead and found some space down the right wing but was just denied by the cover. Sedg continued to attack from deep, looking to offload but leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattack which came when loose ball was picked off by Billy Harding who hared upfield only to be brought down just short. A score looked likely as the ball was worked wide but the move was killed by an offside intervention by Sedg no.8 Matt Lamprey who finished his game in the sinbin. Stour kicked for the corner and wound the clock down, Heatley blotting his copybook by knocking-on with the line at his mercy but Sedg’s final attack foundered near halfway and Stour had secured the win. Fulltime 15-7.

Stour’s next fixture is against Tynedale at Newcastle Falcons’ Kingston Park on Mar 19th. Their next fixture at Stourton Park is on Apr 2nd when they take on Chester, ko 3pm. Stourbridge Lions host a rearranged league fixture this Sat Mar 12th against table-topping Moseley Oak, ko 2pm.