Christmas blues for Luton after defeat at Chelmsford

The optimism generated by last week's win over Harrow was quickly dispelled by defeat at fellow strugglers Chelmsford on Saturday.

Paul Alston's men now know they face a mammoth tasked to save their L1N status in the New Year. Defeat by 36 - 24, leaves Luton 21 points from safety.

Yet Luton controlled most of the first half at Coronation Park home of the Blueboys. Playing with the windy conditions at their backs they piled pressure on the home side's line. But a combination of good defence and Luton handling errors meant the game remained scoreless until the 22 minute. Then a rare break out by Chelmsford saw them score a converted try to take the lead 7-0

Luton renewed their efforts and enjoyed their best spell of the game. In 10 minutes Luton added 10 points. First Povey found his range with a penalty from under the posts, then Davies filling in for Mahendran at scrum half made an excellent break, off loaded in the tackle to Povey who had just enough strength to make it to the line. With the conversion Luton lead 7-10.

But Chelmsford came straight back with the perfect riposte by kicking a penalty to tie the scores at 10 all at half time.

Sadly this was the last time Luton would have parity with their hosts.

Within 5 minutes of the restart prop Garner saw yellow and the game changed. Chelmsford took full advantage with their pack doing the damage. Scrums near to the Luton line saw the scrum collapse twice and the referee had no hesitation in awarding consecutive penalty tries. When Garner returned Chelmsford were almost out of sight.

And they were in the 55 minute when Chelmsford released their backs for No11 to score in the corner. Luton were now down 27-10
But Luton found the drive to drag themselves back in to game. Allen, having another good game at eight, broke from a maul to reach the line and Povey added the conversion. Luton trailed by ten.

However the slight ray of hope was truly snuffed out when the Blueboys added a penalty and a try with 10 minutes to go.
Leading 36-17 Chelmsford hung on to the final whistle even though a later Harris try and Povey conversion saw the margin reduced to 12 points.

After the game Luton first team manager Dicky Jones said: "We started well and controlled most of the game but we couldn't take our chances with the wind behind us in the first half. In the second half we were second best and we gave away too many penalties."

Looking ahead to the second half of the season Dicky added: "It's a 21 point gap so it's a long way back from here, but it's doable. It's going to be tough, but In January we welcome Australian centre Tyler Chant to the club and we are also looking at a couple of other prospects."