HEREFORD manager Josh Gowling says his side need to play more to the strengths of marksman Tyrone Barnett after he scored a brace during their 3-1 victory at Curzon Ashton.

The 37-year-old forward, who signed from Eastleigh in the summer, netted a powerful strike in the first half and header in the second sending Hereford to a seventh victory in nine games.

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“I think he’s been a bit frustrated lately, he’s been making good runs and we’ve not been delivering the ball,” said Gowling.

“Ryan (McLean) comes on and delivers the ball and that’s what Tyrone (Barnett) gives you in the box. We need to get the ball into him a little bit more inside the box so he can use his athleticism and his experience to get onto things.

“His first strike, my goodness was excellent.”

Hereford welcomed back central defender Jordan Thompson from injury for their visit to Curzon Ashton and played three in defence with two wingbacks to great effect in the first half.

They reverted back to their usual formation in the second half Gowling says his side switched ‘effortlessly’ between the two.

“It was really pleasing,” added Gowling.

“I thought that we were clinical, the chances that we had we put them to bed. We defended well, tried a new formation (3-5-2) out today, we went to it against AFC Fylde and wanted to come here and see how that worked.

“I thought at the start of the game it worked really well, but at the back end of the first half they got on top of us a little bit, we had a little tweak at the start of the second half and went to a three up top and then went back to our normal formation.

“We work on two formations anyway so from that formation to our usual formation they transitioned effortlessly which was really pleasing to see.”

The victory at Curzon leaves Hereford in 11th just three points outside the play-off positions ahead of their FA Cup game against Portsmouth.

“We haven’t spoken about the FA Cup since the draw has come out,” added Gowling.

“I haven’t care about it. I care about the league, it has been game by game and the lads have been so professional with it.

“Last year when we got in the play-offs we lost Maziar (Kouhyar), Jaanai (Gordon) and Miles (Storey) through injury so our front three disappeared.

“That was probably the reason we didn’t get in the play-offs last year, I think if we’d kept those we would have

“We’ve just got to keep our players haven’t we.”