London 2 North West: Luton 5-26 Fullerians

Trailing 5-16 at the break Luton rallied but still came away with nothing.

The home side welcomed back Jon Kerr in the second row and gave debuts to scrum half Ashley Willing, winger Matt Poole and fullback Sam McGregor

Newlands was busy and buzzing with expectation. After a tough season and relegation last year hopes were high at the start of the match.

But the visitors, who had came down with Luton settled to their task quickly and any hopes of a winning start were quickly extinguished.

Although Luton lead briefly after an O'Grady try it was Fullerians who did the rest of the scoring.

Two penalties and tries from Harvey and Dollard gave the visitors a comfortable half-time lead. Defensive frailties were not helped when scrum half Willing saw yellow for a high tackle and spent 10 minutes in the sin bin.

The second period saw a further penalty and a try for Woodham as Fullerians eased their way to 4 points.

Luton struggled with injuries to Yang, O’Grady and McGregor but showed moments of promise for the months ahead and will have an opportunity to realise that potential next week when they travel to Datchworth.

Head coach Alston and coaches Kenny and Hamm will have a lot to work on in training. As Hamm said after the match: “A tough day and start to our season. Frustrating from a coaching perspective as we know the boys are so much better.

“The key factor for me was our line speed in defence which was non existent in the first half and although it improved massively in the 2nd half our one-on-one tackles let us down.

“Top performers from yesterday, Ryan Staff as always when he’s on the pitch really put in a captain’s performance leading from the front.

“Harry Alston in the centres was one of our main threats going forward, carrying hard and hitting some good lines.

“Harry Wright also made a big difference when coming on forcing several turn overs and being more aggressive around the break down area.

Ian
LRFC match reporter