10:43am Friday 5th March 2010
Luton 22 pts Hereford 14
AFTER conceding three tries in a torrid first 15 minutes of their game at Luton, Hereford fought back gamely in the last hour.
They bombarded the defence in the second half but were unable to overturn the slow start and ended up losing this National 3 Midlands fixture.
With Luton scoring 81 points against Malvern the previous weekend, Hereford must have expected a difficult time. When their hosts pierced their defence three times, a repeat result looked possible.
With Luton converting one of the tries, Hereford found themselves 17 points down and still in first quarter. The Wyesiders rallied well and had cut the deficit to 17-7 by the break.
They dominated the second quarter with some good driving forward play backed up by astute positional kicking from fly-half Dean Powell. Hooker Gareth Miles took a quick-tap penalty before crashing over the try line and Powell kicked the conversion.
At the start of the second half, the home forwards made a break and then drove centre Matt Allen over for an unconverted try within 10 minutes.
However, they then fell foul of the referee, having a total of three players yellow-carded.
Hereford controlled the rest of the game. They reduced the deficit to eight points when the referee awarded them a penalty-try after penalising the home forwards for collapsing the scrum on their own line. Powell kicked the simple conversion.
This was the closest Hereford could get as Luton defended stubbornly despite their numerical disadvantage. Young wing Kye Burrell was held up just short of the line three times.
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