HEREFORD  25 - 18  LEDBURY

Wyeside, Saturday 4 December 2004

Powergen Midlands 3 West (South)

Mark Williams from Clearview was on hand to present a set of shirts to Hereford first team in a sponsor ship deal that is gratefully received by the Club.

Ledbury came to Hereford for their first ever league fixture and gave a good account of themselves. Indeed they scored more points than any other travelling team at Wyeside this season. They managed to score those points with about 30% of the ball and by playing in their own half for 80% of the game.

Hereford failed on numerous occasions, yet again, to “put away the opposition” when it seemed easier to score a try than not too. However, nothing should be taken away from Ledbury who defended stoutly and with conviction and vigour throughout the game. From the kick off Hereford attacked and spent the first 10 minutes inside the Ledbury 22, winning ball at will from the forwards and attempting to break down the Ledbury backs. The Ledbury backs however were up to the task and denied any flicker of a gap with a combination of superb tacking and playing the offside rule to the limit.

After 12 minutes an interception from full back Hallam almost on his own line gave Ledbury their first points, he made it to the half way line before being chased down, passed it to fly half Rob Collins who then threw more than a level pass to winger Ollie Kaye who finished off the move in the corner. Des White chased him down on the line but the score was given by an out of breath referee.

From the kick off Ledbury had their best 5 minute spell and were rewarded with a penalty from which scrum half Lee Bentley who made it 8-0 to the visitors. Hereford spent the next 20 minutes inside the Ledbury 22 but the only thing to show for their dominance was a Will Bolt penalty just before half time.

The start of the second half saw Ledbury attack a nervous Hereford defence. Bentley missed another attempt at a penalty but with 8 minutes gone fly half Collins scored another try against the run of play, which Bentley converted to take the visitors into an unbelievable 15- 3 lead.

With 30 minutes remaining, the Hereford coaches sensed that changes had to be made and Tim Harvey was brought in at fly half. This had an instant result when Hereford piled on the pressure and had Ledbury pinned on their own line. A succession of penalties from the defenders gave the referee no option but to yellow card fly half Collins for persistently killing the ball.

After several delicate runs Harvey sliced through the Ledbury defence to score an individual try under the posts. Gary Preece converted to make the score 10-15.

Harvey gave Hereford the confidence and set up the backs on several occasions with Ben Collier, Andy Johnson and Jamie Bullock dominating the loose play in the forwards. Confident passing between forwards and backs set winger White away to score an unconverted try and take the score to 15-15 with a quarter of an hour left.

Hereford continued to dominate and the outstanding Cieran Griffiths added a further try with a conversion from Preece taking the score to 22-15. From Ledbury’s kick off the referee gave a penalty for offside to Ledbury and Bentley gained another 3 points. Hereford however realised that to make sure of the result they had to score again and Preece duly completed the scoring with a penalty in front of the posts to make the final score 25-18.