Bury came out on top against a spirited Stowmarket side in the county cup on a blustery afternoon.

Bury played down the slope in the first half and quickly put a number of phases together and threatened the Stow line. We hit the rucks very hard and we were unlucky not to score down the blindside but some good Stow defence kept us out.

We kept up the pressure and after 10 minutes scored a great try. Some good works out wide on the left by the pack left the backs with plenty of space to work in and they moved the ball wide at pace. Will Cameron had plenty of work to do but managed to work past two defenders to touch down in the corner.

We continued to keep the pressure on and were rewarded by another try after the backs put the balls through the hands to create an opportunity which Rhys PJ took with a great hand off on the full back. He repeated the feat a few minutes later when we worked it wide again. There were a couple of great breaks by Bully who was twice denied by their fullback.

At half time we were leading 15-0, and had played some great rugby. The second half saw Stow come back hard. There was some good aggressive forward play by both sides with Archie and Scott putting some good runs in. The back row of Scott Ryan and a James seemed to be everywhere. We were unlucky to have a great try disallowed after a scrum saw the back line run a loop with Lucas and Charlie both getting great passes away and Rhys tearing through but we were called back for a forward pass. The scrum was superb in the second half as both sides battled hard but the conditions were not easy and there were a lot of knock ons.

We defended well in the second half and pushed right to the end. Stow were definitely up for it and gave us a really tough game but credit to the boys, the forwards did a great job up front and the backs looked dangerous all afternoon with the ball in hand. Thank you to Stow for hosting and good luck to them for the rest of the season. Stow chose Charlie as man of the match.