Old Halesonians 30 pts Ludlow 14 pts

LUDLOW suffered their first Midlands 1 West defeat of the season at Old Halesonians on a day when lady-luck deserted them.

After holding their own for 20 minutes, injuries to two key players meant they had to reorganise their back division.

Old Halesonians stepped in to take advantage of the situation, and had opened up an 18-point lead before the interval.

The Linneymen re-g rouped at the break and they were staging a promising fight-back when a blatant piece of blocking during a Halesonians attack went unpunished and led to them conceding a third killer try.

Ludlow struck back once again, but never fully recovered from this setback.

The first quarter was evenly contested, but then back-to-back injuries to scrum-half Gareth Parker and Dan Rawlings forced both players off the field.

The hosts exploited gaps in the reorganised back division and ran in two tries.

As well as converting one of them, they kicked two penalties and led 18-0 at the interval.

Ludlow used the break to re-establish control, and with their forwards in commanding form at the scrummage, managed to get back into the game.

The forwards camped on the Halesonians line, and, after winning a number of penalties were awarded a penalty try, which Will Norton kicked, to close the gap.

They were back on the attack when a third highly-debatable try for the home side ended their challenge.

Ludlow went back on the attack and their forwards put pressure on the Old Boys line, eventually setting up the chance for Norton to drive over.

Norton landed the conversion to make the score 24-13.

The home side took a tap penalty to catch the Ludlow defence napping and scored a fourth try, to finally end the Shropshire