LUDLOW boss Chris Waldron says this Saturday’s marquee friendly against Hereford FC is part of a plan to push his side to their very limits in pre-season.

Waldron has purposely selected teams from higher levels for friendly fixtures, with this weekend’s National League South opponents the most difficult of the lot.

The manager hopes the tests will toughen his side up and pay dividends when the West Midlands Division Two campaign begins on August 10.

Waldron said: “We’ve got a tough pre-season playing teams in higher leagues than us but that’s what we have tried to do.

“For me, that’s better than playing teams below us, beating them and not really knowing where we are. We have tried to make it as tough for the lads as we can.

“I’ve been around football long enough to know that, given Hereford are so many leagues higher than us, it is going to be an extremely hard day on Saturday.

“But we can’t do much about the level they play at. We know we are not going to compete with them technically but we will put the effort in and give it our best shot.

“It will be a good day for the club and it’s a really high-profile game. It’s almost a fundraiser for the club in terms of the number of fans we hope will come and watch.”

Ludlow did not have the ideal preparation for the Hereford clash, having lost their second friendly of pre-season 5-0 at home to Pegasus Juniors last Saturday.

Waldron, however, was not unduly concerned by the result, insisting a flurry of second-half changes had been responsible for the unflattering scoreline.

He added: “It was a close game in the first half. We made a lot of changes because we had trialists and some younger lads we wanted to have a look at, and we lost our way a bit.

“But we’ve had a lot of new lads turning up for training, there are some fresh faces and the squad looks good.

“We have lost Jack Marston and Kieran Dovey who will be hard to replace because they are quality players but I am happy with what we’ve got."