The New Wilderness have struggled this year, but are looking to end the season strongly

Nick Horton has urged Eton Manor to finish a challenging 2018/19 campaign on a high after returning to winning ways at Luton last weekend.

The New Wilderness club had slipped to ninth in the London One North after a four-match losing streak during January and February.

However, a 43-8 triumph in Bedfordshire on Saturday has lifted spirits ahead of a trip to Old Priorians this weekend.

Captain Horton said: “We dropped to ninth, but Saturday’s win has seen us move back up to seventh and suddenly the teams ahead of us are not too far away.

“Old Priorians are just behind us and we don’t have a great record at their place, but it is important we back up the Luton result with another good one this weekend.”

Jamie Connors’ men needed a good start at Newlands Road and debutant George Palmer provided it for the visitors.

He touched down early on and although Luton initially fought back well, Manor were too strong for the hosts.

A purple patch before the break was crucial as the away side ran in four tries from the 31st minute until half time.

Cameron Dutch grabbed a couple of scores, Palmer also went over and so did Harry Bone to make it 31-3 to the visitors at the interval.

Luton reduced the deficit in the 65th minute, but it ended up waking up Connors’ men as they finished with aplomb.

Garth Tucker got in on the act before Dutch claimed his hat-trick with the final score of the afternoon to cap a good day at the office for Manor.

Horton added: “We really needed the win. We had high aspirations at the beginning of the season and for one reason or another it has not turned out how we expected.

“We had a tough period, but we thought we had turned it around and then had a bad defeat to North Walsham.

“A win was needed because we have been getting such good numbers in training and in general the atmosphere is really positive, so it was great to get that feeling back.

“We got quite a few tries and we had some excellent performances from people like Cameron Dutch, he played really well, so it was a good day all-round.”

Manor will now aim to kick on again and make it back-to-back wins away to Priorians.