LUCTONIANS caused a huge upset in the National League 2 West producing an outstanding display as they ran out 7-41 away winners at second placed Clifton.

Whilst Lucs travelled in a decent run of form of their own, with four victories in their last five games, their 27-5 win the previous week against Newport had come at a cost, and the Herefordshire men travelled with four of their key performers so far this season absent, in league-leading try-scorer Ben Link, wingers Charlie Grimes and James Wheeler and talismanic number 8 Aiden Cheshire all out.

 In spite of the many changes made by the visitors, it was Lucs who started the stronger and after building some sustained pressure in the Clifton 22, the first score came from their notorious driving maul, with Mat Hackley dotting down on five minutes. Fly-half Louis Silver, who was impeccable with the boot all afternoon, added the extras for an early 0-7 lead at half-time.

Buoyed from their backs-to-the-wall stand at the end of the first period Lucs wasted no time in extending their lead at the start of the second period and in identical fashion to the start of the first half.

After five minutes of play Connor Deignan was driven over the man dotting down for his fifth try of the season. Silver knocked over the tricky conversion for 0-14 and things got even better for the visitors just four minutes later, as kick-chase pressure won a penalty in front of the sticks, about 25 metres out, which Silver once again made no mistake with to make the score 0-17 with around half an hour to play.

Lucs withstood waves of attack and further extended the lead when a kick over the top from Silver was gathered by winger Giles Morell who scorched in from 40 metres out to notch another converted try and a 0-24 lead after 59 minutes.

The hosts finally showed a glimpse of their scoring capability on 62 minutes with winger Alex Howman scoring which Zac Ward converted.

Former Luctonian Brad Talbot was yellow carded for the hosts on 66 minutes and three minutes later the visitors sealed the four-try bonus point as they drove over from a scrum, with replacement number 8 Seb Robinson dotting down for what looked like the match winner. Silver again knocked over the conversion to take his personal tally to 11 points.

Lucs had replacement winger Josh Harrison sent to the bin for a tackle in the air but the visitors still added two final tries in spite of the numerical disadvantage, through two of the best players on the day in blindside flanker Tom Smith and scrum-half Josh Nott with replacement fly-half Tom Jones unable to convert either, for a final score of 7-41.