Fylde welcome the players, officials and supporters of Luctonians to the Woodlands today. We hope they enjoy our Ladies Day! The 150 miles trip for our visitors can be tough but isn’t their longest jaunt north by far.
Luctonians RFC was formed in 1948 and consisted mainly of former pupils of Lucton School, an independent school which is now a co-educational, day and boarding school in Lucton near Leominster. After a long period in the Midlands regional leagues, Lucs won promotion to the National Leagues in 2010 and they had eight seasons in N2(N) before relegation at the end of the 2017-18 season. They bounced back immediately and regained their place at level 4 in the RFU leagues for the 2019-20 campaign.
At first glance, English geography appears to have been corrupted by the National Leagues allocating Luctonians to National 2 (North) rather than N2(South). Few would believe that Herefordshire would count as being in the North. But the complexities of having to split 48 clubs scattered throughout England into two sections inevitably requires some what might be initially puzzling juxtapositions. ‘Lucs’ have to make numerous long journeys to the environs of Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East as well as the much closer Midlands bases of Stourbridge, Bournville and Loughborough. Their longest journey is to Tynedale near the Scottish border, a round trip of 520 or so miles.
This is likely to change next season as it appears likely that Lucs will be allocated to the new National League Two division, West & Midlands. So this may be the last fixture between our two clubs for a while.
Luctonians had a difficult start to the 2021-22 season, with four home games and six away matches in the first third of the season. They lost seven out of their first eight games, including away fixtures at three promotion challengers – Hull (27-8), Rotherham (37-22) and Sedgley Park (38-7).
Mid-winter form improved and they notched various wins including deservedly beating Fylde by 15-14 at the end of November in gale force conditions at Mortimer Park. Recent form has also been good, with ever growing confidence leading to five victories in the last seven matches. And the two defeats in this sequence were agonisingly close home contests to promotion contenders Rotherham (10-12) and Sedgley (13-15). Their 43-0 home win last Saturday against Blaydon illustrated their ability to put lesser teams to the sword.
Although only two league positions separate the two clubs, with Fylde in 5th and Lucs in 7th, there are in fact 30 points between them.
Lucs will be confident that they can knock over Fylde today as they did in the first ever game between the clubs in November 2010, the season that saw the Lancastrians storm to the championship of National Two (North). Fylde lost just four matches during that season including a 26-19 defeat by Lucs at Mortimer Park, a huge feather in the newly promoted club’s cap. Even in the return game at the Woodlands in March 2011, and with Jason Robinson in their ranks, only a last minute try by Callum McShane took Fylde to a 34-29 victory against gritty and dangerous opponents.
The next time the two clubs met was in 2019-20 when Fylde managed a double victory, but only by the narrowest margin, 25-27, at Mortimer Park. The return at the Woodlands was on 7th March, a 48-10 win, which was significant as the last game before the Covid-19 lockdown was announced a few days later – and the Club’s last league game for 18 months until the 4th Sept 2021 at Tynedale.
Lucs’ Head Coach is Ryan Watkins (with assistance from Forwards Coach George Thomas) and they’ve built a sound squad around a durable pack and a speedy backline. Dangerous runners amongst the backs include fullbacks/wings Giles Morell, Josh Watkins and Rob Bengry, centre Ben Owen and half-backs Will Burton (ex-England Counties fly-half) and very experienced scrum-half Louis Silver.
The Lucs pack features experienced front rowers Connor Deignan, Ben Link, Ben Murphy and Joe White, former Worcester Warriors Academy powerful lock Owen Harriott-Davis and backrow forwards Matt Hackley (who is also the 1st XV captain) and Aidan Cheshire.
This is a very combative outfit which will most certainly test Fylde’s resolve.