Birmingham Solihull 21 pts Luctonians 22 pts
A PENALTY by Geraint Langdon from the final play of the game brought Luctonians’ dire run of 10 National Two North away defeats to a close.
And the win made it a happy return to his old stamping ground for Luctonians’ director of rugby Alex Davidson.
“There are not many left that I used to play with but some of the fans are still there,” he said.
“It’s nice to go back and even sweeter when you leave with the win.”
Luctonians were without keyplayers Paul Hulland, Ed Taylor and Anthony Marfell so their win was even more meritorious.
Hero of the day for the Kingsland club was Drew Cheshire who completed a hat-trick of tries for the second week running.
“He’s on fire at the moment,” said Davidson.
“And he had no right to score two of the tries - he just powered over with players hanging off him.”
Two early penalties by Jack Jolly put the home side into the lead and the fly-half added a third before winger Cheshire reduced arrears with a superb 40-metre burst.
Darren Forden’s score for the hosts gave them a 14-5 half-time advantage.
With the breeze in their favour, Luctonians piled on early pressure in the second-half and this paid off within five minutes when Cheshire took advantage of some weak tackling to cross in the corner for a try which Langdon converted.
In the next few minutes, Luctonians, who had seen Zak Watkins yellow-carded in the first period, lost flanker Matt Hackley, lock Davidson and hooker George Thomas to the bin.
But despite playing with only 12 players for a short period, the visitors only conceded a penalty try which was converted by Jolly.
With eight minutes remaining, Cheshire wriggled over near the corner to claim his second successive hat-trick of tries.
Langdon’s conversion set up a tense finish and the centre held his nerve in the closing seconds to slot home a penalty from in front of the post 40 metres out to seal their victory.
Luctonians host Dudley Kingswinford on Saturday.
“It would be nice to win that one for the bragging rights and to keep on top of that little Midlands group of us, Bromsgrove and Dudley,”
said Davidson.
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