BULLS old boy Adam Bartlett had one of his easiest afternoons of the season as feeble Hereford handed three points to Gateshead.

The former Hereford keeper had almost nothing to do for the first hour.

And although his goal came under more pressure in the closing stages after Michael West pulled one back for the Bulls, even then you could count the number of saves he had to make on the fingers of one hand.

“I wasn’t overworked today,” he admitted. “We had a new manager come in earlier in the week and we’ve worked all week on his philosophy of playing it out from the back and keeping the ball.

“I think that shocked Hereford a bit because under the previous manager we’ve not really been doing that.

“We kept the ball really well in the first-half and I don’t think they really knew how to deal with that in the first-half.”

Hereford looked solid in central defence in the opening period but were completely out of the action further up the field.

They failed to get hold of the ball in midfield and lacked a forward player who could hold on to possession on the few occasions that they were able to mount an attack.

Hereford produced some good challenges in the penalty area through Paul Green, Rob Purdie and Luke Graham in the first half- hour to deal with potentially dangerous situations.

But the break-through came on 32 minutes.

James Curtis played the ball out of defence to James Marwood who slipped a neat pass to Josh Walker with the midfielder able to slide a shot past Rhys Evans into the corner of the net.

Walker’s second strike four minutes before the interval was even more accomplished.

Graham looked to be harshly penalised for a soft challenge 30 yards out but Walker curled his free-kick up and over the wall into the net.

Hereford’s fans, including a number who flew up to spend the weekend on Tyneside in addition to the 28 hardy souls who travelled on the supporters’ coach, might have expected a rally in the second-half.

But there was no additional sign of life until Martin Foyle made three substitutions on 63 minutes.

The improvement was almost immediate and 15 minutes from time, the replacement trio of Jon Brown, Michael Rankine and Frankie Artus all had a part to play in the move which saw West lash home his first Hereford goal.

Hereford dominated the remainder of the game and had chances to grab a point which, on the previous balance of play they would hardly have deserved.

“We scored two good goals in the first-half and they had a little bit of a push in the last 20 minutes when they scored,” said Bartlett.

“Then there was always going to be some pressure on us when we conceded but I felt that we ground it out and did really well to get the three points.”

With successive wins after a poor start, things seem to be on the up for Gateshead and Bartlett sees a positive future.

“The new manager here is really passionate about the way he wants to play – he wants to play out from the back with the ball along the floor and that’s something different for me and suits me down to the ground,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”