LUCTONIANS tasted their first league defeat in over a month, as they went down 35-22 at fifth placed Fylde.

The home side showed more accuracy with the boot along with five tries compared to Luctonians' four.

With Lucs slow out of the blocks it was no surprise when elusive fullback Tom Carleton opened the scoring with a searing break through the midfield on five minutes.

Lucs would hit back though, and after home winger Henry Hadfield was yellow carded for a forearm smash, centre Josh Watkins crossed the whitewash to make it 7-5, as Tom Jones could not add the extras.

Restored to 15 men, Fylde then scored again, as hooker Ben Gregory dotted down at the back of a driving maul, with Smith slotting the touchline conversion on 24 minutes for a 14-5 lead.

Fylde punished their visitors' dropped ball with an excellent counter attack going the length of the pitch, with centre Tom Forster finishing off the move and Smith knocking over another cracking kick from the same spot he had just succeeded from three minutes earlier.

Lucs were gaining the upper hand at set piece and in the physical stakes, and following a dominant scrum and playing with advantage, winger James Wheeler got on the end of a kick through to dot down in the corner to bring the visitors back into the game, before Jones agonisingly hit the cross bar with an excellent conversion effort from the touchline.

Fylde scrum half Matt Sturgess round off the half with another long range effort for a 28-10 scoreline at half time.

In an evenly contested second half, Lucs were now soaking up all that the exciting Fylde outfit could throw at them, and whilst holding the edge still in the physical contest, began to exert pressure on the hosts.

When Hadfield received his marching orders for his second yellow card offence, a late tackle this time, on the hour mark, Lucs had 20 minutes to see if they could reign in the hosts.

Aiden Cheshire’s brilliant score on 61 minutes gave Lucs a glimmer of hope, but the home side would extinguish that, scoring again on 71 minutes through winger Thomas Grimes, Smith rounding off his perfect day with the boot for 35-15.

Two Lucs replacements combined to secure the Herefordshire outfit a deserved four-try bonus point, as Will Pearson’s strong carry and offload put prop Ben Murphy in next to the sticks, Jones this time adding the extras for a 35-22 final score.