VITAL WIN AWAY FROM HOME

WIN CONSOLIDATES LEAGUE POSITION

Sudbury secured their first win of 2019 when they made the long trip to Luton for their first away trip of the year. Luton, one place below Sudbury in the league, were eager to reverse the result when the visited Sudbury as they could have ended the afternoon on equal points but the blues were well aware of the situation and made sure it did not happen.
In the first half Sudbury played into a strong head wind but the home side failed to use the elements in that first period. For most of the first half possession seemed to be evenly spread but Sudbury always made better use of their time with ball in hand. Luton’s big pack tried to dominate the scrums and at the breakdown but soon realised that the Sudbury defence was determined and would not give in without a fight. Sudbury were, as usual, doing well in the lineout and Chris Whybrow was making good breaks from the back of the scrum on the Sudbury put in, a couple of scoring opportunities were missed from moves in the twenty two but midway through the half a Sudbury scrum in the twenty two on the right hand side, saw Sudbury use all the backs to ship the ball wide to the left to Paul Chaplin, who outpaced the defence to score. Luton continued to try to batter their way through with their forwards and after several scrums in the visitors red zone Sudbury eventually cleared their lines having survived the home side’s best efforts.
Sudbury made several good breaks towards the end of the half with Chaplin and Jonny Taylor both going close only to stopped deep in the Luton half and the score remained 0-5 until half time.
Sudbury had the advantage of the elements in the second half and was able to use this to maintain territorial advantage. An early penalty to Sudbury from the twenty two was missed but a second attempt minutes later was kicked by Tom Summers to put Luton in a position of having to score twice. Halfway through the period Luton picked and drove deep into away territory and questioned Sudbury once again but the Blues remained resolute.
Sudbury continued to keep the majority of play in the opposition half and again several chances went begging as the cold wind took its toll on the hands. Summers added another penalty to the tally and Sam Maile made a forty metre dash to put Shaun Smith clear to score on the half hour.
From the restart Luton retained possession and took play into the Sudbury half, a well worked cross field move started two phases of play close to the Sudbury line and eventually they spotted the gap for their only points of the afternoon after thirty three minutes of play. To finish the afternoon a break by Charles Jackson got Charles Osborne across the paintwork and the conversion by Summers gave Sudbury a well-deserved and much needed win away from home.