Luton relegated after Chingford defeat

A great performance from Luton was not enough to beat 10th placed Chingford as they were defeated 16 – 23 at Newlands Road.
The result means that Luton are now already relegated from the London One North league with five matches to go till the end of the season.
Luton began the game well, taking it to their opponents and were awarded a penalty in the seventh minute which Rick Hobbs scored with ease, but Chingford responded three minutes later with a penalty of their own to even up the score.
Despite this, the hosts continued to dominate and had a great chance following some impressive passing play between Steve Allen, Thomas Mahendran and Tyler Chant but Chant was taken down just before the line.
In the 14th minute, Luton were awarded another penalty for an infringement in a ruck which Hobbs scored once again to make it 6 – 3.
Although the home side were the dominant side, they had plenty of chances that they should have made more of, which showed after Robert Povey was yellow carded for a deliberate knock on and Chingford got over at the half hour mark through James Baber, Gareth Stoppani kicking the extras.
It took Luton just two minutes to respond as they were awarded another penalty and Hobbs made it three kicks out of three to bring the score back to 9 – 10.
Just five minutes later, Hobbs intercepted a Chingford pass and showed them a clean pair of heels, grounding the ball just under the posts then converting his excellent try to make the score 16 – 10 at half time.
The second half was slightly less eventful than the first, and started with a Chingford try in the 45th minute from Nick Lynch following some good passing between the players, with Stoppani converting. Chingford also scored a penalty in the 52nd minute to make it 16 – 20.
In the 84th minute, Luton were piling on the pressure, just inches away from the try line when Ross Geraghty barged his way through, grounding the ball then losing control of it, but the referee called it as a knock on, denying Luton’s chance of going ahead.
The final chance of the match came three minutes from time after Chingford were awarded a penalty just in front of the posts which Stoppani easily sent over.
Luton manager Dicky Jones is looking forward to next season now his side are out of London One North.
He said: “We fell into our normal trap; we switched off. We were clumsy in our tackling and it cost us a vital try. We were unfortunate towards the end of the game, we grounded the ball but it was deemed knocked on, but you have to live with those mistakes and hopefully we’ll bounce back next week.
“Altogether it was a positive performance from us, we looked to dominate for large periods of the game and we’ve come away from another good performance without the desired result.
“It’s excellent to have Robbie (Povey) back, he’s an excellent player. He showed his class at the international level, he was very unfortunate to become unstuck against a very good American side. He’s a real asset for us and hopefully we can keep him for next year.
“It’s now mathematically impossible so I can stop beating the drum about staying up and we can start looking forward to next year. We’ve already had some discussions with a few players and we’ve already got the ball rolling for next season so we’re all really excited to see what talent we have coming through.”