Stour instead fed off a steady flow of penalties as the visitors transgressed time and again at the breakdown, content to close out victory through the right boot of place kicker Chris Scott.

Lucs made first use of a stiff southerly breeze, scrum half Louis Silver landing a penalty when a Stour tackler failed to roll away. He slotted another after before a speculative Lucs’ kick through took a deflection that wrongfooted the Stour cover and set up a try for flanker Henry Munkley, giving the visitors a 13 point lead.

This stung Stour into action, and restored to the outside centre berth after his outing at scrum half last week Joe Heatley’s break set up a nicely worked handling move that sucking in the Lucs defenders. With a huge overlap beckoning the ball was moved right where fullback Rod Petty crossed for the try. As their scrum starting to impose themselves on the lightweight Lucs forwards Stour were back for more straight from the restart, hooker Billy Harding finishing off another neat set of interchanges to bring the hosts within a point.

Referee Callum Sharp lost patience with Lucs spoiling tactics and despatched lock forward John Kelly to the sinbin, but their 14 men managed to hold on to the slender advantage until the halftime break. Stour got their noses ahead with a Scott penalty just after the restart, but having beefed up their pack with front row replacements Lucs hit back with an opportunist try for fullback John Morris.

But that was to be the last time they troubled the scoreboard operators, Stour happy to grind out a win by playing the game in Lucs’ half and kicking the penalties that came their way. Lucs lost prop Joe White to the sinbin for a further offence, Scott landing two further penalties during his absence to stretch the lead to 24-18. He hit the final nail into the coffin with a further penalty to deny the visitors even a losing bonus point.

Stour now take a well-earned Christmas break at the turnaround of the season, they will then will be looking to avenge their early season loss at Yorkshire side Sandal who they host on Jan 2nd, 3pm ko.