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HEREFORD  37 - 14  DROITWICH

Wyeside, Saturday 25 September 2004

Powergen Midlands 3 West (South)
 
Seventeen-year-old Adam Knight was drafted into the first team with the unavailability of Des White and had a sensational debut, scoring three tries. Luke Clifford, also seventeen, also made his debut against “in form” Droitwich and had a tremendous first game. Indeed the back row of Clifford, Captain Wilf Rees and Andy Johnson were instrumental in the destruction of Droitwich's attacks and in setting up Hereford’s tries.

Ben Collier moved across into the second team to have his first game as Hooker and Matthew Pritchard was back in attendance after his trip to Australia, whilst Andrew Barnett was unavailable due to work commitments. This leaves coach Mike Stubbs in a difficult position for the first time in three years where he has six talented back row players to fill only three positions, should Collier decide to return to the back row.

Coach Stubbs was pleased with much of the play and again stated that Hereford Rugby Club’s firm stance on “bringing on the youngsters” would eventually pay dividends and strengthen the club, bringing Hereford back to top leagues once again. “The club's long term aim is to get back into the National leagues, using home grown players, not paid for or poached players, which is the only way that any truly amateur club can survive. We are fully committed to playing younger players whenever possible. Two other seventeen year olds, Richard Rees and Brett Griffiths, were on the other pitch playing for the 3rd team and they are also knocking on the door”.

Things did not start off in the correct fashion and after only five minutes a defensive mistake by Sam Walker allowed Droitwich to score under the posts and take a seven point lead. This shook the confidence of the team and allowed Droitwich to attack the Hereford line where Clifford was on hand to stop a further try with some good defensive work.

After twenty minutes Hereford forwards won some good ball and the passing was sharp from the backs and gave Knight his first try as he sped over in the corner to make the score 5-7. Dave Thomas did some solid work in and out of the scrum and gave a good base for the back row to work off. Johnson set up another storming run and Tim Harvey was on hand to score under the posts. Gary Preece converted to take the score to 12-7. Just on half time Ben Jenkins added another when he dived over from a well-set up ruck to give Hereford a comfortable 17-7 lead at the break.

Into the second half and a slick passing movement between the impressive back row gave Knight his second try of the game. Solid defence from Rees seemed to inspire the team and Ben Jenkins began to stamp his authority on the game, along with Tim Harvey. Hereford lapsed for a short while, cutting further chances of scoring by giving away a stream of penalties. Clean ball was set up from the forwards, which lead to a second try for Harvey when put over by Knight. Preece then kicked a further 3 points form a penalty.

Hereford relaxed a little and some shoddy defence and poor tackling allowed Droitwich to score a second try. However Adam Knight was once again on hand to finish the game as he started it by going over in the corner. Preece kicked the conversion to end the game with a satisfying 37-14 victory for Hereford.