Southern Counties North

Stow 18 Aylesbury 32

STOW gave themselves too much to do in an entertaining game with a naive first half performance.

Despite the visitors being helped by a strong wind in the early stages the first 10 minutes or so was even with both sides missing penalties.

Aylesbury then missed their second before Stow were caught offside and went three points down. Another Aylesbury penalty miss was quickly followed by a successful Nick Cafearo penalty which levelled the scores.

From the restart the ball was knocked on and from the resulting scrum a missed tackle led to a converted try under the posts.

Against the elements Stow tried to kick out of defence instead of keeping possession and this led to two quick tries from the visitors, one being converted.

Stow were on the back foot and struggling to gain ground and it was not long before another wayward kick from their own 22 was picked up and turned into Aylesbury’s third score.

Just before the break more pressure resulted in a line-out five metres out, the ball was secured and driven over for a converted try, leaving Stow 29-3 down at the interval.

Stow had to up their game and use the conditions which they duly did.

Pressure resulted in a penalty which was quickly taken and James Holmes was on hand to score, although the difficult kick went wide.

Stow now had their tails up and were on top but Aylesbury kicked three points with their first venture into the Stow 22.

Stow came back strongly and turned over possession on the halfway line with Holmes taking the pass and breaking through several tackles to score in the corner.

Aylesbury were now under the cosh but defended strongly and with time running out Stow needed to score quickly. However, for all their possession and pressure they could not break down the home defence.

With the last play of the game Aylesbury eventually cracked and it was Holmes again who broke through for his third try.

The conversion just slipped wide and the visitors went away with all the points and left Stow kicking themselves for their first-half performance.