Luton Rugby suffer narrow Colchester defeat

Luton were narrowly defeated by Colchester in an entertaining affair on Saturday which resulted in Paul Allen’s team finishing fifth in London One North, writes Stephen Richards.

The final day of the season saw the club undertake a St Georges day celebration before the match and spirits were high, although it could have been made better with a Luton win that would have seen them leapfrog their opponents into a fourth place finish.

The start suggested it was on the cards as Steven Ellis took just three minutes to open the scoring with a try after good work from Chris Davies and Aiden Kenny, standing in for the injured Rik Hobbs, converted to put Luton 7-0 ahead.

Just four minutes later, Ellis turned provider for Tesh Edwards after Colchester carelessly lost possession, Edwards racing through to score another try with Kenny’s resulting conversion again successful to extend the advantage to 14-0.

Colchester were not in the contest until Dan Whiteman scored a try on 20 minutes and James Crozier converted to make it 14-7.

That failed to shift the momentum away from Luton however as Edwards again combined with Ellis before going over. Kenny missed his conversion though, leaving the score at 19-7.

The visitors refused to lay down and Adam Cook scored his side’s second try on 25 minutes, Crozier again converting to reduce Luton’s lead to 19-14.

Luton remained on top though and bagged a fourth try and a bonus point on the stroke of half-time through Adam Harris following a scrum. Kenny converted to send Luton in at half-time with a healthy looking 26-14 lead.

It was a different story after the break as Colchester came back out much stronger and Luton only managed to keep them out for seven minutes, Whiteman adding to his first-half try to score another and Crozier converted to make it 26-21.

The travellers then took the lead for the first time in the game on 62 minutes as Crozier scored a try to seal a bonus point for his team and completed the job with another successful conversion, the scoreboard reading 28-26.

Colchester who now had the wind in their sails, settled the contest when Crozier capped off a fine all-round performance with an outstanding individual try.

Collecting the ball on the halfway line, he chipped the ball over three Luton players before dancing round two more and touching down. He then made it five successful conversions out of five to put Colchester 35-26 up.

Ellis pulled a try back for Luton with five minutes to go and Kenny converted to give Luton realistic hope of still claiming the win, although two very late penalties from long-range were missed by Kenny and Colchester just about held on to claim victory.

Luton: Blinkhorn, Irvine, Pacey, Nelly, Harris, Depper, Wilmore, Kenny, Ellis, Brennan, Davies, Edwards, Affleck. Subs: Duffy, Staff, Murphy.