HEREFORD coach Bob Stewart says he knows his side needs to score more tries in order to be really in the Midlands 1 West promotion mix.

Despite having the second best defence in the league, the Wyesiders find themselves seventh in the division, despite only losing three of their 12 games and beating five of the six sides above them.

That is because Hereford have only earned three bonus points, something which Stewart is focusing on.

"Our defence is really solid and our line-outs and scrums have improved a lot, but we're not scoring enough tries," said Stewart.

"We've just got to be patient because I'm a great believer in that when the first lot come, confidence will grow."

Stewart added that Hereford have probably gone under the radar in the league due to their low-scoring games.

"If we win our game in hand, we go up to fourth, so we're not a million miles away," he said.

Hereford beat Leek 15-9 last Saturday thanks to tries from Jock Welch and Richard Preece.

Welch opened the scoring following a rolling maul before a Leek player was shown a yellow card after Hereford forced a number of penalties.

Following a series of forward drives, Hereford managed to cross the Leek goal line again, but were recalled due to earlier forward pass.

But the forward pressure was sustained and the pack drove over for Preece to claim the second try, which Morgan Goodall converted.

Ill-discipline by the Wyesiders led to Gary McDermott kicking over three penalties for Leek before Dean Powell slotted over a three-pointer for Hereford.

"We should have scored a bonus point, maybe we were too eager to take our chances," admitted Stewart.

"But we have got a lot of injured players back and have got good competition in the back line."

Hereford are due to be home to Stoke-on-Trent this Saturday, but the match is in doubt to the current wet weather.