Ludlow coach Dave Irish upbeat despite opening day defeat by Hereford (From Ludlow Advertiser)

Ludlow coach Dave Irish upbeat despite opening day defeat by Hereford

9:00am Thursday 6th September 2012 in Sport By Ian Morgan

Ludlow 3pts Hereford 37.

LUDLOW Rugby Club’s head coach, Dave Irish, says his side shouldn’t be too despondent after their opening-day derby defeat.

The former Malvern player said Ludlow ran out steam in the final 20 minutes and newlyrelegated Hereford took full advantage.

“We ran out of steam with about 20 minutes to go,” said Irish, after Saturday’s Midlands One West clash at The Linney.

“We also missed a few tackles as the match opened up and Hereford were clinical and took all their chances.

“We had some key players missing with Joe Doyle and Sam Wilkes were both away.

“We were three or four players down on our first-team squad but the lads who came in were outstanding.”

Will Norton kicked Ludlow’s points as they trailed just 6-3 at the interval.

“Hereford scored two tries at the start of the second-half which knocked us back,” said Irish. “There were a lot of positive things from our performance.

Improving our fitness is something that we can work on.

“It was a very competitive fixture and our defence was outstanding for long periods.”

Irish said the match had a cracking atmosphere and it was a derby which caught the imagination of local rugby fans.

“We had 70 people for lunch before the game and there must have been between 200 and 300 people watching the game.

“We had a lot of people watching from other clubs who had yet not started their league campaign.”

The Linneymen travel to Northwich this Saturday and will be hoping to bounce back.

“We have never played against Northwich and I don’t know too much about them,” said Irish.

“They played against Old Halesonians on Saturday and lost 65-0.”

He added: “But you can’t read too much into that result because Old Halesonians will be one of the fancied teams this season.

“We’ll train hard this week, do our preparation and then take a coach for the two-hour journey up to Northwich on Saturday morning.”