STOURBRIDGE'S poor away record this season continued as they lost 40-34 at Preston Grasshoppers.

Stour’s away form this campaign has been poor with just two wins on the road against relegation sides Peterborough and South Leicester.

However, they did manage to come away with two bonus points on this occasion.

Typical of many games this season, Stour leaked early points after Spence dotted down, untouched with less than two minutes gone.

The league’s fourth highest points scorer, Tom Davidson, added the conversion and just three minutes later he added a try of his own after Stour had conceded a penalty. Davidson’s conversion grazed the right hand post but it was 12-0 with just five minutes gone.

The visitors then started to exert some more pressure after Luke Veebel fielded a chip ahead. Later some good lineout work by Nick Murphy and Nick Cairns resulted in Nigel Mukarati crashing over. Chris Scott added the conversion to make it 12-7.

Stour took the lead almost straight from the restart. Nick Murphy gathered the kick off and made some good gain line success. Mark Harrison then executed an excellent break followed by the Preston 15 losing the ball. The chip ahead found the foot of a chasing Dan Rundle who controlled and gathered the ball touching down for his 22nd score of the season and giving Chris Scott another conversion success.

Preston then went ahead after Lamprey barged over the line giving Davidson another two-point conversion and a 19-14 lead.

It was then Chris Scott who, on his way to getting man of the match, added a drop goal to bring the scores closer.

However, the remaining 10 minutes of the first half saw Preston score 10 unanswered points to lead 29-17 at the break.

Once again, Stour conceded straight from the kick off and that man Davidson did not hesitate to take three points within a minute of play.

Both sides swapped penalties before a penalty try to Stour brought the score to 32-27.

More poor discipline let them down and Davidson hit his sixth successful kick of the day for a 35-27 lead.

Chris Petty gave the visitors a bonus point with another try and Scott's conversion made it 35-34.

However, the win went to the hosts when Trueman crashed over late on.

Stourbridge Lions were in action at Stourton Park where they faced local rivals Dudley Kingswinford.

A big crowd at the Bridgnorth Road ground saw a clash which had plenty of end-of-season significance for both teams.

Stour's first XV return to Stourton Park fro their last home game of the season this Saturday against already relegated Macclesfield.