SOAKED Stags snuck into joint sixth spot in the table after putting on a classic wet weather rugby performance in a mud bath at the Racecourse on Saturday.

Midlands Two East South

Huntingdon Stags 8 Stockwood Park 7

SOAKED Stags snuck into joint sixth spot in the table after putting on a classic wet weather rugby performance in a mud bath at the Racecourse on Saturday.

An uncoverted Ben Strangeways try and a Matt Durrant penalty against a converted score from the Bedfordshire side was enough to seal four points for Huntingdon.

Both teams did well to make a game of it on a bog of a pitch, that had been used for car parking by race goers just 48 hours earlier.

The wins moves them level on 36 points with Northampton Old Scouts, whose game at Stewarts & Lloyds was a washout.

Injured skipper James Thorp, watching from the sidelines, said afterwards: “We put on a master class of wet weather rugby in very muddy conditions.

“It was never going to be a high scoring affair, more likely a battle of ten man rugby, which it was, and was a battle we won through the hard graft of our forwards.”

Stockwood registered first when a deep kick downfield was not tidied up by full-back Neil Welsh and allowed a Park winger to run in under the posts - which was converted - to hand the visitors a 7-0 lead.

Home winger Richard North was left red-faced after squandered a fabulous opportunity to level things up before the break when he failed to ground the ball before running over the line.

Durrant’s penalty got the scoreboard ticking early in the second half and it was Stangeways, who sniffed a gap around the side of a ruck, who scampered to the corner from 30 yards out for the hosts’ first and last try of the afternoon.

Stags will be hoping for a rain-free few days to let their pitch recover before welcoming Market Harborough to the Racecourse this weekend.