Bishop’s Stortford secured their National League 1 status for another season with a nail-biting 27-22 win at Cinderford in their relegation showdown on Saturday.
The 60 or so supporters who made the trip from Silver Leys to the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire were made to wait until the final action as the visitors saw their 24-0 first-half lead whittled away by the hosts in a match which saw both sides have a man red-carded.
Stortford went into the final match of the campaign in 11th place on 51 points, with Leicester Lions 12th on 50, Taunton Titans 13th on 48 and Cinderford bottom on 46, with the bottom two to be relegated.
Coach Marcus Cattell and his men knew that failure to secure two points – either through a draw or through try and losing bonus points – could send them down to National League 2 East.
As it was, they recorded their fifth win in eight matches since the middle of February, after a winless run of six before that, to secure their safety and send Cinderford down along with Taunton, despite the Somerset side winning 47-32 at Blackheath because Leicester Lions came from behind with four minutes left to win 23-14 at Sale.
At Cinderford’s Beavis Memorial Ground, Stortford were awarded a penalty try after 10 minutes after a great chase by full back Nick Hankin, who was brought down on the line, resulting in a yellow card to the hosts’ Joe Mullis.
They extended their lead to 12-0 when flanker Harrison Langworthy scored his fifth try of the season. Fly-half Tom Walker missed with his conversion kick, but made amends by converting Stortford’s third try, to take his points tally for the season to 67, after his great kick through led to winger Jake Morris dotting down for his sixth this season.
The visitors scored a bonus-point fourth try soon after the half-hour mark when Aussie No 8 and captain Will Rogers scored his fifth of the season to make it 24-0. Walker missed the extras.
Cinderford got their first points on the board through winger Sam Smith’s unconverted try on the stroke of half time to make it 24-5 at the break.
In the second half, the hosts further reduced the deficit with an unconverted try by prop George Porter from an excellent driving maul, but the conversion kick went wide.
Cinderford’s cause was made tougher when lock Jack Shields was shown a red card following an incident which resulted in Stortford’s Tom Walker going off injured. His replacement, Connor Lloyd, kicked the penalty to make it 27-10.
The referee made it 14-a-side when he showed Langworthy a second yellow, and Cinderford then scored two more tries through Smith again and centre Max Knight, one of them converted, to make it 27-22 and set up a nerve-wracking finale for the Stortford fans.
But the visitors mounted a superb defensive display to repel repeated Cinderford attacks in the closing minutes to secure the bonus-point win that saw them finish 11th on 56 points, level with 10th-placed Sale, ensure a sixth season in League 1 and maintain their record of never having been relegated at any level in their 104-year history.
Bishop’s Stortford: Hankin, Morris, Biard, Mills, Smith, Walker, Bolton; Hill, Adejimi, Peck, Kiff, Charter, Langworthy, Jones, Rogers (capt). Replacements: Rayment, Warren, Wardell, Pope, Lloyd.