Bishop's Stortford.........17

Welwyn........................12

(NPI Cup, first round)

IN THE opening game of the NPI Cup on Saturday, Bishop's Stortford narrowly beat Welwyn, thanks largely to two tries from John Griffiths, their skipper.

Stortford, playing down the slope, started strongly and were awarded three penalties in the opening 12 minutes. The home side decided not to kick but their set penalty moves failed to come to fruition.

Two good lineouts saw Andy Meredith combine well with Steve Jones, the veteran hooker, to earn a fourth kickable penalty which Graham Lewis conspired to miss.

The Stortford front row continued to take charge of the game and they forced an error as they powered the Welwyn scrum back and Griffiths capitalised on the mistake to pass to his centre Richard Evans. He, in turn, sent the ball to youngster Shane Leeks on the wing who used his pace to round the defence and touch down in the corner.

Lewis missed the conversion, but Stortford went into the break with a five-point lead.

The second half started with a good kick received by Richard Thompson and the ball moved quickly to Andy Miller, the winger. who was only just bundled into touch.

Welwyn then forced their way back into the game as they rucked and mauled to good effect to open their account with a converted try and take the lead for the first time.

This lifted the visitors as they mounted attack after attack and Andy Bennett narrowly missed a penalty chance to increase their lead further.

Griffiths punished them for that miss when he scored a converted try to put the home side back in front. He went over for his second shortly afterwards following a spell of sustained Stortford pressure.

Welwyn scored a final try to set up a rousing finale, but Bishop's Stortford held out to progress to the second round on October 17.

Stortford have a free week this coming weekend, but they have arranged to play a friendly fixture with Chelmsford. Kick-off is at 3pm at Bishop's Stortford's home ground, Silver Leys. The league continues next week with a game at Braintree.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.