Luctonians triumph over county rivals

9:00pm Sunday 11th May 2008

LUCTONIANS won the North Midlands Cup for the third time in four seasons but made hard work of beating Herefordshire rivals Hereford 20-3 in the final at Stourbridge.

Hereford were severely depleted because the final clashed with their end-of-season tour to Antwerp but they still defended heroically to restrict Luctonians to a 10-point advantage until North Midlands lock Darren Brick crossed for a converted try late in the game.

"We were disappointed with our performance, but pleased to end the season with something tangible," said Luctonians' rugby director Dave Thomas.

"Hereford played well but we were always going to be on a hiding to nothing.

"If we had beaten them 60-0 people would have said it was because Hereford were below-strength. We were the better side but we made too many errors. We tried all our moves but we looked a little bit rusty after two weeks off and made a lot of mistakes."

Scrum-half Chris James kicked two first-half penalties for Luctonians with Shimeon Mifflin responding with one for Hereford.

Centre Cameron Hewitt scored the opening try after a good break by Andy Smith and Andy Garrod added the conversion.

That is the way it stayed until Brick final broke Hereford's stubborn second-half resistance and Garrod again kicked the conversion.

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