Hereford 10 Kenilworth 50
What a difference a week makes!
Seven days ago Hereford were running in eight tries against Worcester and today they were on the receiving end of eight tries from Kenilworth.
From the kick-off, play moved from end to end and Kenilworth took a 7 point lead after five minutes. A penalty put them inside the Hereford 22. A catch and drive from the lineout secured the try which was converted. Hereford responded and levelled with a similar try, touched down by Lewis Jordan and improved by Cal Brayshaw. Kenilworth added two further tries one converted before Cal Brayshaw added a penalty for Hereford.
Despite being under pressure for most of the first half Hereford were still in with a chance at half time at 19 points to 10. Towards half time the Wyesiders had a couple of chances which could have added 10 further points to their tally. A Matt Milsom kick and chase was halted just short of the Kenilworth line. The usually reliable Cal Brayshaw missed with a penalty attempt.
The second half was a different story, for twenty minutes Hereford held their own.
Their well organised defence held Kenilworth at bay, but a series of injuries disrupted their structure and Kenilworth took advantage to run in five tries within a fifteen-minute period.
After a tough afternoon Head Coach, Scott Sturdy said “It was a bad day at the office for us, last week we talked about finding out whether we were a top two or four team or not. Today showed we have some room for improvement. I thought Kenilworth were outstanding! They are the most polished team we’ve seen so far this season. Their kicking game and set pieces were excellent, they monopolised territory and put us under a lot of pressure.
I congratulate them on their win and a very good performance. It’s a shame that after 55 minutes we lost a couple of players. When we had to go to uncontested scrums and fourteen players, the game ran away from us. We moved away from the things we’ve been working on over the last few weeks and got punished. Some people might say that the score did not represent the game, but to me it does. Kenilworth are a very good team; we lost our way a bit and they made the most of it. It will take an excellent performance from a very good team to beat them this season.
What have we learned from the last couple of weeks?
We have learned that some of the sides are not as good as us, but we are a still some way away from the very best sides. What must we do now? Park the loss, learn from the defeat, move forward to a really difficult away game at Lichfield next week and bounce back.”
The most severe of today’s injuries was to Scott Robinson, who was admitted to hospital with a serious ankle injury. Scott has only recently returned to the Hereford club after six or seven years on “walk-about” and taking the opportunity to play a bit of rugby in the southern hemisphere.
More minor injuries to Lewis Jordan, James Marshall and Fran Jennings are likely to heal in time for next week’s game. Some good news on the injury front. Freddie Spencer had twenty minutes game-time off the bench today, hopefully with no ill effects.
