LUCTONIANS were beaten by 11 points as Loughborough Students ran out 38-49 victors following an exciting game of rugby at Mortimer Park.
Luctonians will probably rue the 2 yellow cards awarded against them for foul play in the second half when they were dragging themselves back into the contest, just when this looked like being a real evenly balanced toe to toe encounter.
The home side struck first with their prolific try scoring captain and hooker Ben Link once again coming up at the bottom of a driving maul after 5 minutes, conversion being missed.
But the Students were back in the contest and replied with two quick tries to take a 5-14 lead.
Lively home winger Grimes ran in a score for the home side after 16 minutes, Randell converting to reduce the scoreline to 12-14.
But in what was a real end-to-end encounter the Students further increased their scores with three more unanswered tries before half-time, to enter the break with a 12-35 lead.
Lucs made changes at half time and came out revitalised, replacement James Mear dotting down on 45, with Jack Goodwin adding to the home sides tally on 49 mins to reduce the deficit to 24-35.
But it then went sour for the home side with Charlie Grimes first being shown a yellow for foul play after 51 minutes, George Bennett following him just four minutes later to see the home side down to 13 players.
Whilst the Students failed to take full advantage of the number count, this took the sting out of the home sides attack and purpose.
Two further scores stretch the Student’s advantage with the immaculate kicker from the tee to a full 25-point advantage, leading 24-49 with just five second half minutes on the clock.
The Students were also shown a yellow for dissent to the referee shortly after, and Lucs with an excellent home crowd making plenty of noise despite the scoreline, rallied to see Caleb Montgomery and James Wheeler, who had a fine game for the home side, both dotting down late in the game, Owen Randell converting both to see the score back to 38-49 at the whistle.
Lucs go on the road next week to Hornets who have crept above them in the league and will be hoping some of their injured and depleted squad are fit to return.
Luctonians: Watkins; Grimes; Wheeler; Park; Bennett; Jones; Randell: Deignan; Link; Powell; Montgomery; Whiteman; Geraghty; Robinson; Goodwin
Replacements: Davies; Middleton; Harriott-Davis; Mear; Bengry
