1st TEAM Match Report
Saturday 19th November 2005
LEAGUE: MIDLANDS 3 EAST (South)
DAVENTRY 1st XV: 15 V LUTTERWORTH 1st XV: 39
It goes without saying that the Lutterworth pack usually overwhelm their opponents and so it was on Saturday, in particular they dominated the lineout, winning all their own ball and most of Daventry’s. However it was the threequarters who blew Daventry away with a fine display of open running football.
It took the visitors fifteen minutes of sustained pressure to get points on the board, that man again, hooker, Paul Riley opened the scoring from a well driven maul. The home side came back well for the next fifteen minutes eventually levelling the score at five points apiece. A defence breaking run and well timed offload by centre, Nick Hutt, set up full back, Jim Croucher, to take on and beat three defenders for the first of his two tries of the day. Minutes later, another striking burst by Hutt allowed fellow centre Bobby Williams to run in from thirty metres. Fly half, Tim Jeffs who all day created lots of problems for the beleaguered Daventry defence finished the first forty minutes with a fly hacked try and conversion to give his side a 22 to 5 half time lead.
After the break Daventry could find no answers to the questions posed by Lutterworth except by attempting to kill the ball and slow the game. The contest was put out of the home side’s grasp when an incisive run by Williams set up a ruck, from there all the backs got their hands on the ball for a classic try finished in style by Hutt. Minutes later prop, Paul Wilford, carried the ball forward in a powerful drive once again giving the backs the platform and space to run at the opposition, Croucher running at pace from deep, collected the ball, chipped it over a defender and gathered for his second and Lutterworth’s sixth try. Jeffs converted and minutes later slotted a penalty to leave Daventry floundering at thirty-four points adrift but in the closing minutes they fought back gamely with two consolation tries. Their scrum half scored the last, their best player on the day despite being behind a pack that spent the whole afternoon going backwards.