Hereford 62 Crewe & Nantwich 9

Today Hereford welcomed Crewe & Nantwich to Wyeside, prior to kick off both teams, respected a minute’s silence in celebration of the life of club member Simon Smith. Simon was a past treasurer, an excellent clubman and a very good player who would have thoroughly enjoyed the game, which produced ten really good tries.
Hereford started well and within ten minutes had their first try, but it was not until the thirty-first minute that they added a second. Crewe & Nantwich had meanwhile benefitted from Hereford indiscipline to register three penalty goals and changed ends just 3 points down at half time.

The second half was a different matter as the Wyesiders ran in eight more unopposed tries.

Backs Coach, Alun Richards said after the match “Very happy with the result overall, we talked during the week and before the game about the key principles in attack and defence. To be fair the boys came out and after the first ten minutes put them into practice. It was disappointing after that early score, a very nice try with some lovely edge to edge stuff, that the boys sat back a bit and took their foot off the gas. They gave away too many penalties. The penalty count against us of ten penalties in the first half let Crewe back into the game, we should have been two or three scores better off by the interval without conceding any points.
At half time we got key messages about going back to basics in our attacking, being more direct and improving discipline.
The boys put that into practice in the second half and their performance was much better. We scored a variety of really nice tries playing edge to edge, through the middle and from our very effective driving maul. At the end of eighty minutes to put sixty points on any team in this league is no mean feat. We were ruthless, we didn’t take our foot off the gas for the whole forty minutes. That’s what good teams do, that’s what good teams did to us when we were away. Next week we are at Droitwich another away game and want to keep our winning streak going, we are three from three now.
It was Ewan Duncan’s last game for the club before he goes off on his travels, he was outstanding again today with a “Man of the Match” performance. Myself, Scott, the rest of the coaching team and the players wish him all the best for the next year ahead and hope to see him back in a Hereford shirt before too long.”
After seven minutes, a long throw over a lineout was picked up by Scott Robinson, he laid off to Jack Goodwin who made a long crossfield run and when tackled passed to Ollie Hutcheson who dived over for the first try. Although Hereford remained in control, they seemed to lack drive.  It was a further half hour before they added to their score when they won a scrum and moved the ball mid-field for Mark Philo to burst over near the posts, Josh Wright made the conversion. Crewe & Nantwich had slotted three penalties and at the interval Hereford led by 12 points to 9.

Early in the second half a visiting player was shown a red card, the resulting penalty gave Hereford good field position in the visitors’ half.

From some driving play near the goal-line scrum half Connor Sullivan dummied his way over for a try which seemed to open the flood gates. The Wyesiders playing with shape and attacking from deep, kept the scoreboard ticking over adding seven more tries. The catch and drive from a lineout was held up over the line, the drop out was collected by Freddie Spencer who jinked his way to the line for the bonus point try.
A catch and drive saw ace poacher, hooker Lewis Jordan touch down for try number 5.
Leon Parsons made a long break and an off load to Freddie Spencer gave Freddie his second try and the team’s sixth. A driving run by Ewan Duncan added the seventh, Levi Hughes went over for try number 8 and Luke Yarranton bagged the ninth, before Scott Robinson touched down for the tenth and last try. Josh Wright kicked four further conversions.
The performance of the team today particularly in the second half, was extremely good and showed that the work of the coaching team over the last eighteen months or so is starting to pay off. The style of play in the second half illustrated what the coaches would like to see more consistently. Today there were key performances from Josh Wright, Jack Goodwin, Freddie Spencer, Leon Parsons and Tom Williams plus good impact off the bench from Nathan Boden, Levi Hughes and Luke Yarranton.
There was also a great performance from the 1870s who beat the Redditch first team by 53 points to 12 and scoring nine tries in the process. Tries were scored by: Lewis McBride, Jamie Hodges, Cal Duncan, James Lawrence, Toby Jones, Lennon Fishlock, Joe Russell and Truman Lisle 2. Jordon Sheehy converted four of the tries.