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1st TEAM   Match Report

Saturday 22nd October 2005

LEAGUE:  MIDLANDS 3 EAST (South)

LUTTERWORTH  1st XV: 20  V   NORTHAMPTON CASUALS 1st XV: 20

The slightly better side on the day took home the points in a disappointing game that was littered with errors and penalties.

Lutterworth, as has been the norm this season, started strongly and during the first twenty minutes Casuals were pressured into conceding a series of penalties. Despite missing two goal attempts, Lutterworth finally broke through after 25 minutes, Paul Riley bagging his fifth try of the season, Tim Jeffs duly converted to give the home side a seven-point advantage. The tables were quickly turned as Lutterworth started to consistently infringe, the appalling penalty count inevitably allowed the visitors to find touch and score from the resulting lineout.  Just before half time Jeffs gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about as he found all the gaps in Casuals defence and scored a brilliant individual try under the posts. However yet another penalty conceded was slotted by the visitors to leave Lutterworth with a narrow half time lead of 12 to 10.

Lutterworth had not performed well during the first forty minutes but worse was to come after the break when more serial infringement allowed the Northampton side to kick another penalty and score a converted try.  Casuals did not appear to want to be beaten in the penalty count and a bizarre twist in the final ten minutes secured victory for the visitors. Their tighthead prop was sin binned for persistent offending, as they had no front row replacement the referee called for uncontested scrums. Thus the set piece advantage, which Lutterworth had gained all afternoon, was lost and a vital ten metre attacking scrum could not be given the usual treatment by the Lutterworth forwards.