HEREFORD  26 - 9  NEWBOLD

Wyeside, 30 November 2002

Powergen Midlands 2 West League

Hereford came out of their 6 weeks spell of inconsistency and by the last 20 minutes of the game were almost back to their best early season form. Man of the match Richard Mason made a try and was involved in many attacking moves and was prominent in defence when needed. Coach Mike Stubbs said, “I was pleased with the way Richard played his part and he has developed well during the first half of the season. All the young players are learning as they play and hopefully when we have one or two more experienced players back in the side, they will develop at an even greater speed”.

Hereford started shakily for the first 30 minutes and seemed to lack confidence in their play. After ten minutes they were 6–0 down to 2 penalties kicked by fly half Danny Pope. Both were from offside decisions given by referee Andy Weymouth from the Bristol Society who was to prove to be a referee that would stand no nonsense from either side.

From the restart good work from Johnson and Bullock drove Hereford up to the Newbold line and when the away side were penalised for offside in the ruck, Colin Osborne kicked the first of his 4 penalties. Unusually for him however, he was unsuccessful with 4 other attempts throughout the game, that he would normally have slotted over.

Newbold attempted to get back into the game and another infringement just inside the Hereford half gave Pope his third and final attempt at goal, which he duly converted to take the score to 3-9 after 20 minutes. After this Hereford didn’t allow Newbold into their half again and some slick movements from Richard Mason, linking up with Osborne, Grisman, White, Bullock and Pritchard pushed Hereford back up towards the line, where hooker Andy Mason was on hand to complete the move with a 20 yard dash to the line. Osborne kicked the two points and Hereford were in the lead for the first time. After 35 minutes flanker Fletcher was sinned binned for persistent offside and by the end of the half Hereford could have had another 3 or 4 try’s had not the final pass gone astray a couple of times and Aussie Full back Warren Lambert had not been there to halt the charge with some fine defence.

Hereford really stepped up a gear in the second half and were only in their own half on a couple of occasions, however some stout defence from the back footed Newbold team ensured that the score did not reflect the domination of the home side. Matt Pritchard, who had had a good first half, was replaced by Mark Morrison and ably supported by the rest of the forwards, especially Chris Fairley, started to make holes in the Bedworth Defence.

After 5 minutes of the second half Osborne kicked a penalty for fringing and then put another one over when winger Brad Jones was sin-binned by the referee for foul play. Dave Thomas, playing his first league game at prop, had held the front row together firmly along with fine games from Andy Mason and Shannon Dicke was then replaced by Clive Eastwood. At 16-9 it was all one way traffic and Andrew Johnson was once more instrumental in turning over ball to set up the second Hereford try. From the resulting scrum Hereford passed the ball out through all the backs to winger Mason, who made ground on the wing before cutting inside with a well worked move to allow Jeremy Grisman to slice through the defence to touch down under the posts. Osborne converted to give Hereford a 23-9 lead.

Hereford then opened up and despite numerous attacks on the Newbold line could not get over for a third try. Osbourne kicked a further penalty shortly before the end to finish the score at 26-9

Next week Hereford play away at Stafford who are currently one place above Hereford in the table holding second spot. Having already beaten Stratford and Derby in the league, away from home, the City team will be looking for maximum points again.