The misery continued for struggling Braintree as they crashed to a heavy defeat at the hands of their rivals from the Hertfordshire side of the A120.

Stortford's well drilled forwards were so effective in pushing their opponent's pack backwards that what little ball Tree won they were pressured into losing immediately.

Scrum half Michael Gaskell and his second half replacement Simon Fookes both found themselves swamped whenever they tried to feed possession out to the backs.

It meant that the Black and Ambers were unable to manoeuvre themselves into a position where they could become an attacking force and could be nullified by the home side.

In a depressingly one-sided first half Stortford ran five tries past Tree, who suffered a hammer blow when they lost influential forward Nigel Brand early on through injury.

Forced to reshuffle their pack the visitors found themselves even more up against it as their hosts swarmed over them in the forwards.

Stortford's try tally, added to by a single penalty and conversion, enabled them to build up a 30-0 first half lead.

After the break, Tree rallied briefly and centre, Steve Gleeson went under the posts after taking an inside pass during a rare attacking move.

Skipper Matt Wadforth, who has taken over kicking duties from South African fly half Willy Castleman, successfully converted the score.

But the traffic continued to be largely one way in Tree's direction and Stortford ran more tries past them to round off a convincing London North League Two win.

Gleeson and fellow back Lee Walker, who worked tirelessly on the wing, deserved praise for their performances in adversity, as did the ever reliable Stevie Sewell in the forwards.

After the game skipper Wadforth described Bishop's Stortford as "easily the best side we've come across this season."

He said: "they were just too good for us. Their pack was massive and they were quick as well, after we lost Nigel and had to reshuffle their was only one team in it.

"Our scrum was going backwards at a rate of knots and it was a disaster really, We found ourselves defending for virtually the entire 80 minutes.

"We never gave up and I can't fault the lads for their commitment but we were second on the day and that's all there is to it."

Wadforth is hoping for a change in the club's fortunes after Christmas when he hopes his injury ravaged pack will have recovered sufficiently to let Tree show what they can do.

Australian prop Rob Howley, Mark Lewis, Mark Wadforth, Alastair Steele and Nigel Brand are all hoping to be fit for the New Year.

Added Wadforth: "we've got to turn it round after Christmas. We've got the players to do it at the club but we've just not had the breaks.

"We don't deserve to be in the position we are in but there's no point in dwelling on it. We just have to make sure we start winning games."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.