Nightmare at the Memorial Stadium

8:42am Thursday 28th August 2008

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Bristol Rovers 6 Hereford United 1.

SHELL-shocked Hereford ended up at the foot of the League 1 table after an awful afternoon at the Memorial Stadium.

The Bulls made a dreadful start to the afternoon by conceding two goals in the first six minutes and things went downhill from there.

Any prospect of a second-half revival was killed when Rovers scored their fourth goal just 35 seconds after the break.

And two 25-yard free-kicks in the last 13 minutes exposed still further United’s defensive frailties on the day.

“Once more the goals were very poor from our point of view,” said coach John Trewick.

“We discussed several things before the match and we were looking for several things to happen. But they did not have to work hard for the goals, that was the problem.

“The game is virtually over when you are two-goals down away from home after six minutes.

“We have a lot of soul-searching to do and there are things we need to put right immediately.

“The fourth goal, coming less than a minute less than a minute into the second-half was a little bit alarming – there seemed no real danger but he just walked through and shot.”

He continued: “After that, it was a hopeless battle from there on in and you salvage what you can.

“It’s ridiculous but at times we played some decent football, their keeper made some good saves and Steve Guinan got his goal, deservedly as he worked his socks off.

“It just feels like we have been battered over the head with a big heavy stick.

“It is a rude awakening to League 1 football but we played teams from this level last year and more than matched them.”

With only two minutes played, Dean Beckwith slipped on the edge of the area and, with no defensive cover in evidence, Darryl Duffy had little difficulty in advancing to beat Craig Samson.

Then Ricky Lambert found some space on the edge of the area before turning to beat Samson with an unstoppable effort.

Duffy hit a post before being allowed to turn inside the area by Sam Oji and rifling in number three.

Richard Rose joined the guilty parties at the start of the second period when his indecision allowed Jeff Hughes to race in for the fourth.

And then two virtually identical free-kicks capped the afternoon off.

Both were at least 25 yards out and, on each occasion, the respective strikers, Lambert and Chris Lines, curled the ball around the right-hand side of the wall and into the bottom corner of the net.

Guinan’s injury-time consolation goal was hardly even that for the 588 travelling fans.

“What we must not do is go into our shells or lose too much belief,” said Trewick.

“Of course you lose a little belief, especially on the back of a hiding, but it just seemed as if it was one of those days – just about everything they hit flew into the net.

“We must defend better than we have today, but they just got on some sort of roll and everything went for them.

“It has been a sad day.”

l The defeat was the heaviest reverse in league competition since Graham Turner took over in 1995, with only the 7-0 League Cup drubbing at Premiership Middlesbrough in 1996-7 being heavier.

The previous heaviest league reverse under Turner was at Scunthorpe in the same season when United were caned 5-1.

Hereford: Samson; Rose, Beckwith, Oji, Threlfall; Johnson (MacLeod, 72 min), Smith, Diagouraga, Easton (Done, 72 min); Guinan, Ashikodi (Hudson-Odoi, 46 min). Subs not used: Randolph, Taylor.

Bristol Rovers: Phillips; Pipe, Anthony, Elliott, Lescott; Lines, Campbell, Disley, Hughes; Lambert (Hunt, 79 min), Duffy (Williams, 79 min). Subs not used: Green, Hinton, Rigg.

Referee: Andy Hall (West Midlands).

Attendance: 6,738 (588 from Hereford).

Goals: Duffy, 3 min, 1-0; Lambert, 6 min, 2-0; Duffy, 22 min, 3-0; Hughes, 46 min, 4-0; Lambert, 78 min, 5-0; Lines, 88 min, 6-0; Guinan, 90 min, 6-1.

Yellow cards: Hereford – Oji, dissent, 36 min; Rovers – Pipe, foul, 13 min.