Stockport returned to Headlands Road on Saturday for their next National League 2 game against Sheffield Tigers. The single league point they were left with after 80 minutes was very disappointing. The damage was done in a twenty minute period of the first half when the visitors carved out three try scoring opportunities and took them all.
The first came after 6 minutes when Sheffield’s Man of the Match, James Broadley, came in from his left wing and made an angled run through the Stockport defence. This was converted. 0-7. Barely three minutes more had passed when Broadley was over for a second try when he received the ball wide on the left, chipped the full back and raced through to touch down. 0-12.
Stockport then started to come into the game. Josh Longmore got them on the board with a penalty 3-12 and Sheffield’s hooker was sin binned, but the Tigers defence remained intact and a succession of unforced errors by the home side stopped them increasing their account.

In the 27th minute Sheffield counter attacked up the right wing and when a final tackle was made the Sheffield player made a well timed off load to flanker, Callum Mackenzie who was in close support. 3-17. For the remainder of the half Stockport had the better of things and resorted to using some forward grunt to get them back in the game. It brought a try through prop Craig Anthony and Josh Longore added the conversion. 10-17. The applause had barely subsided when Sheffield cancelled off three of those hard earned points from a penalty. 10-20 and Half time.

The second half saw Stockport again dominate possession and territory but repeatedly it just came up short when it came to scoring. With 10 minutes remaining the teams had exchanged penalties and Stockport had had Dave Hopkins sin binned. 13-23. Then Stockport had a lineout close to the Sheffield line. They executed a perfect catch and drive from the line with Nick Smith grounding the ball for his 10th try of the season. Alex Zavallis-Roebuck converted the try from wide out. 20-23. It gave his team nine minutes to secure an unlikely win. The final Stockport effort came to nothing and a match they could and should have won had slipped away. Final Score 20-23.