STOUR Director of Rugby Neil Mitchell believes his side's strength in depth will come to the fore as the season progresses.

Sturdy Stour reeled off their sixth success of the term with a gritty 19-8 win over Wharfedale to remain among the National League Division 2 North front runners.

But Mitchell feels the league table has yet to sort itself out with eight rounds of matches now completed and doesn't expect to see any real significance until Christmas with 17 consecutive weeks of matches to be completed by that stage.

Mitchell said: "The league is all over the place at the moment. We're winning our home games, that's most important and showing some resilience but I think it's the strength of the respective squads that will prove decisive.

"I've still got some excellent props I haven't used yet, players who are used to playing at this level and higher. That will prove important as the season progresses."

Stour were grateful to the accurate boot of fly half Luke White against Wharfedale.

White kicked three penalties in the first half and added the extras to a Nigel Mukarati try as Stour led 16-8 at the break.

A fourth White penalty after the break proved the only further score of the game as both sides repeatedly kicked in a bid to gain territory.

Mitchell claimed: "We will have to work harder on our ball retention this week as we kept trying to play Barbarian style without securing the points. We were throwing the ball about with gay abandon and getting ahead of ourselves when Wharfedale were still in the game. If Wharfedale had pulled a try back, it could have been a different story.

"The kick-off had to be delayed for 20 minutes owing to Wharfedale's late arrival and everything became a bit dis-jointed, it wasn't ideal preparation.

"Everyone had wandered over the watch the Lions game against Stafford by the time our game started and it seemed strange running out onto the pitch with no noise or atmosphere.

"But there were plenty of plus points. Our line-out was the best I've seen for the past 18 months and the scrum was solid and dominant. It seemed to work moving Ceiran Moore to second row as our set piece play is looking good."

Stour travel to face third placed Sedgley Park this Saturday and should have a full squad to select from apart from injury victim Chad Thorne.