HEREFORD RFC coach Alun Richards was left disappointed after his side were overpowered resulting in a 24-0 defeat by A49 rivals Ludlow.

Hereford started the game well and during a fifteen-minute spell kept Ludlow pinned into their own half.

Both Jack Goodwin and Tom Ewins came close to giving Hereford a lead, but some aggressive Ludlow defence kept their line intact.

Hereford were not protecting their possession well and a Ludlow turnover, one of many, took the game into the Hereford half and for the remainder of the first period, it was the Wyesiders who had to concentrate on defence.

Ludlow took advantage scoring tries on 30 and 38 minutes to take a 12-0 lead into the break.

Early in the second half Hereford conceded another turnover, which set up a passing movement resulting in an unconverted try to make it 17-0.

A long relieving kick into the Hereford 22 allowed Ludlow to put some severe pressure on the Hereford defence. Eventually the ball was moved across the line and the winger found a gap in the corner to register the bonus try.

Hereford responded and some driving play from Gareth Jones, Jack Goodwin and Ollie Hutcheson gave Hereford some vain hope of a consolation score.

Richards said: "We tried to get a foothold to play a phased game with physicality, but there were all too few occasions when we managed to do that.

"Ludlow are a powerful team, strong with a good pack of forwards who managed to compete at the breakdown and were very good at spoiling our ball.

"They deserved the win because they had more physicality, they wanted the ball more and made life really difficult for us.

"Tom Ewins and Perry Pudge were outstanding for us, they carried hard and defended well all day and were our main go forward players.

"In the pack our scrum went really well, it was disappointing that we didn’t make better use of the advantage.

"On a cold and blustery day we opted too often to kick to touch instead of opting for a scrum. I was disappointed with our game overall."