THE progress made by Tenbury's leading football team in 2015 has been described as "excellent" by the club's joint manager.

Nick Stocker said there have been many high points this year at Herefordshire Football League Premier Division outfit Tenbury United with his side lifting the Charity Bowl at the end of last season among them.

"2015 has been a good year really," said Stocker.

"We started the year in a relegation battle along with Leominster but after a ten-game unbeaten run at the end of the season we ended up finishing a creditable mid-table.

"We then had the cup win against Westfields Reserves in the Charity Bowl final, winning 2-0 with an excellent performance.

"The way we finished the season gave us hope that we could push on this season and we set ourselves a target of a top six finish."

That target looks more than attainable as United head into 2016 in second place, although their last outing saw them lose 4-1 at bottom-of-the-table Ledbury Town.

"The start of this season has been really good and we have exceeded all our expectations, challenging at the top of the league along with Wellington," said Stocker.

"Although we have dropped off slightly in the last couple of weeks and the title now looks out of our grasp, we are still well on target to achieve our goal.

"We have got ourselves into two semi-finals as well so 2016 also has the opportunity to produce more trophies."

He said the Ledbury defeat "still hurts".

"Not only was it a dreadful performance but it has probably ended our title hopes.

"Losing to Wellington a few weeks before that was also disappointing after we thought we had more than matched them and should have taken the points.

"We can't grumble as the progress we have made in the last 12 months has been excellent and I still feel we can get better. Myself and [co-manager] Aaron Morris are still learning the managerial ropes ourselves so we should definitely be able to improve things in the coming seasons.

"The young lads are getting older and more experienced each game and we have senior guys scoring goals for fun.

"We are always looking to add quality players to the squad as well which keeps everyone on their toes."

Tenbury rugby, meanwhile, head into 2016 hoping to finish their Midlands 5 West (North) campaign in the top three.

The town side are currently fifth out of seven, but player-coach Andy Black believes performances have started to improve.

"I think we have definitely strengthened as a squad now," he said.

"Our last few games have shown a lot of promise, culminating in a very good win against Stourport who we lost to earlier in the season.

"We feel we can give most teams a very good game now."

In the Stourport game, Ben Spires helped his side on their way with Craig Parkes and Greg Powell also scoring tries.

Black said he sees no reason why the club can't now climb the table.

"We want to end the campaign in the top three," he said. "That is our target.

"Game time is essential. You can train five days a week but you still won't have enough experience as it's the game time that's important."