London 1 North: Luton 5-26 Amersham

LRFC’s try was scored by prop Tom Garner and so they keep just above the drop zone in London 1 North.

The home side welcomed back captain Ryan Staff and Callum Strachan from injuries and went out to the first half with lots of motivation to win the fixture.

However, Chiltern grabbed the lead with tries from John and Pearham and they did not let it go.

Despite all their effort and opportunity, Luton could not score in the first half. First David Hamm missed out a penalty kick, then Lewis Mayhew was unlucky to drop the ball just before the try line, leaving it 0-14 to halftime.

In the second half, the home side lost a few of their key players due to injuries. Scrum-half Tom Mahendran left the pitch in the 61st minute, followed shortly after by centre Martin O’Grady.

Garner gave back some hope to LRFC with his try, but Chiltern crushed those hopes with two quick tries in the last five minutes of the game.

First team manager Steve Evans was happy with his team’s spirit and some individual performances but not with the final score.

He said: “The Luton boys put their heart and soul into it, you can’t complain about that, and they definitely emptied their tanks which is what the captain asked them to do at the beginning of the game.

“I think the strength of the squad wasn’t what we wanted it to be, we particularly struggled with the lineouts.

“I believe we should’ve scored more but that’s just the nature of the beast.

“The injury situation is still horrendous. We had a couple of glimmers of hope earlier this week but during training, those glimmers were very quickly snuffed out.

“It doesn’t look to get better any time soon, so we have to deal with that as we can.

“I thought Lewis Mayhew, who is a stand-in winger did a great job stepping in to play 9 following Tom’s injury.

“Captain Ryan Staff was fantastic too, to me he is the man of the match.”

Luton travel to the Southend Saxons next weekend, before hosting the Fullerians for the last home game in 2018.

Orsi Zsuppan
LRFC match reporter