Sudbury claim well-deserved 19-7 win at Fullerians to end losing run in London One North

Sudbury battled to a well-deserved and important away win at Fullerians on Saturday, with the 19-7 success ending their six-game losing run.

It ended up feeling even sweeter as not only did it see them put some distance between themselves and third-from-bottom Fullerians, other results combined to see them leapfrog Luton in the London 1 North table.

Playing up the slope and against the stiff breeze in the first half, Sudbury, who had sat fourth from bottom, had it all to do against the home side buoyed by their first win of the season the previous week.

The game soon turned into a battle of the defences with both teams tackling with determination, which saw the game progress into a battle of wills.

Sudbury let several good attacking moves slip early in the half when handling errors crept in and for the first quarter Fullerians had the best of the territory. After a drive by the forwards through four phases they scored after 27 minutes of play.

Sudbury attacked immediately but knocked on. But they went on to cross the line from a penalty lineout before being denied the points due to the referee having already blown because of a scuffle in the line.

Sudbury opted for a scrum and Jake Sumner darted across the line to score with two minutes of the half left.

The visitors now had the benefit of the elements and enjoyed more of the territory by kicking deep into the opposition half.

Tackling remained key to defence and for half-an-hour no score was recorded, although Sudbury did miss a long distance kick for goal which hit the posts.

In the last 10 minutes Fullerians lost their way, starting with a short lineout that went wrong giving Sudbury field position.

A second lineout was poached by Sam Maile and quick hands put Dan Harding over to score with 10 minutes left. Tom Summers converted to put Sudbury ahead by five points.

Fullers never recovered from this and from the restart Sudbury attacked again. From one of their best passages of play all afternoon they shipped the ball wide to the left for Matt Johnston to run round behind the posts to score a converted try, crucially denying the home side the losing bonus point.

With only a couple of minutes left Sudbury were again attacking in near darkness when, instead of going for the bonus point, they opted to go for the drop goal but missed, sealing a much-needed away win.

It leaves Ben Scully’s side, who now have three wins from their 11 matches, 11 points from the bottom two relegation zone.

Bottom side Diss, who have lost all 11 of their opening matches and only accumulated two bonus points, are Sudbury’s next opponents for Saturday’s home match (3pm).