Midlands 2 East (S): Luton 14 - 7 Market Harborough

Callum Strachan and Chris Davies scored for the home side to secure the victory, meaning that Luton have beaten their promotion challengers back-to-back and have won five games on the trot.

However, they remain four points behind leaders Oadby Wyggestonians.

Luton dominated possession in the early minutes, until Market Harborough’s full back, Laurence Joel, intercepted Rik Hobbs’ pass on their own 22-metre line and was left with a clear run to the line to put the visitors in the lead. Josh Purnell added the extra points from the conversion.

The visitors could have extended their lead to 10 points as they where awarded a penalty, this time Purnell couldn’t slot the ball between the posts.

Luton made Harborough pay for their missed chances and errors as the visitors threw the ball into touch expecting the end of the half, however, the referee awarded the home side a penalty and Hobbs found touch five metres for the try line. The line out resulted in Strachan being forced over the line.

Hobbs rounded off the half with a brilliant conversion from the 22 and tight to the touchline to draw the scores level.

Luton’s second try was surrounded by controversy as Hobbs’ kick down field resulted in centre Jake Hobbs clashing off the ball with his opposite number, leaving winger Davies to receive the ball.

The controversy continued as Harborough’s scrum half attempted to bring Davies down just before the try line but the winger scrambled over, which could have been deemed as double movement, however, the referee awarded the try and Hobbs added the extras once more to give Luton a seven point lead.

The Black Cats tried to get back into the game for the remainder of the half, and gave it one last push in the closing phases, getting close to the home sides try line.

However, Luton turned the ball over and scrum half Jordan Terry Davies kicked the ball behind the dead ball line to wrap up the game.

Afterwards, First Team Manager Steve Evans admitted that he was impressed by Luton’s ability to come back from a try down, he said: “What I think was most impressive was going 7-0 down, it didn’t shake the boys whatsoever. The attitude was there, the spirit was there, full credit to the them in the end.”

The Welshman acknowledged the effort put in by the players in training throughout the week, he added: “There was good attitudes from pretty much everybody, they all knew they had to focus their attention this week.

“Which is exactly what they did, they didn’t get distracted by the ‘mini beast from the east’, which we knew was coming.”

The manager then plauded the man-in-form Ric Hobbs and paid credit to out-of-position Davies, Evans said: “Ric Hobbs’ kicking, I think, was exceptional.

“Jordan (Davies) in scrum half, it was his first time playing out of position for us, we knew losing out on Dave Evans this week was going to be tough ask for Jordan to step in but you know what, he did a great job as well.”

With four games of the season remaining Evans played down the talk of promotion, he finished off by saying: “It’s a cliché but it is every game at a time, that’s all we can do, there’s no point thinking about promotion at this point.

“We have just got to keep winning match-after-match, which is what we have been doing, as long as we keep doing that promotion will be the by-product.”