A young Burton Line-up must take some positives out of a spirited performance at Hereford which cruelly left them empty-handed. The excellent defence of the home side held out through a second half siege and denied the visitors any points.
Burton kicked off, Hereford cleared and Joe Gazzard ran the kick back. Burton recycled the ball and then threw an errant pass over the touch-line.
In the muddy conditions the Hereford Fly Half was kicking for territory at every opportunity. The Burton scrummage looked good on the Hereford put-in but then lost their own ball the first time they had the put-in. Hereford broke into the Burton twenty two for the first time and looked threatening before Eddie Nicholls turned over and Harry Titley found touch approaching half way. Jerri Oldfield took Hereford’s overthrown line-out and Titley kicked to touch ten metres form the Try Line.
Burton applied pressure through Gazzard and Nick Oxley but conceded a penalty. Jack Brooks, Lee English, Tom Murphy and Lewis Sturgess combined before Burton were awarded a penalty for off-side. Dave Archer bisected the uprights.
Burton were dominating territory and Archer was given two more shots at goal, the second of which extended the lead to six points.
There was a frantic spell of play littered with handling errors due to the conditions before Hereford drove a maul into the Burton half and followed this with some good continuity for a try. The conversion gave them a 7-6 advantage.
Further misfortune befell Burton as they had a kick charges down in near half way and despite the scrambled defence holding proceedings up a Hereford forward burrowed over from a breakdown. The kick was missed but it had been a costly five minutes for the visitors.
Again Burton pressed and Archer was no more than a foot short with a penalty attempt so the score was unchanged at the break. Matt Tivey replaced Murphy in the Front Row.
The second half started disastrously as Burton knocked on from the Kick Off and conceded a try from the resulting scrum. Lesser sides would have thrown in the towel but Burton responded with great character.
Joe Gazzard Burton attacked without reward and Hereford cleared to beyond half way. James Davies found Gazzard very well in the line-out throughout the second half and on this occasion the receiver was hauled down leading to a penalty but Burton couldn’t capitalise on the attack and Hereford then threatened. Jack Brooks produced a now trademark big hit to stem the flow.
Although the rain had stopped there was a spell of handling errors and scrums which were mysteriously wheeling only on the Burton put-in. Oxley, Titley and Jack Handy combined well to deal with a Hereford kick and both Titley and Handy put in good kicks which resulted in play ending up in the Hereford half. Handy was replaced by Alfie Grant.
Brooks and Pancho Zemele probed before Titley, Archer, Tivey and Jack Neale made carries. Burton were awarded a series of penalties which they kicked to touch in search of a try.
Quick hands from Ally Weedon got the ball out to Oxley on the wing but he was driven across the field by solid defensive work from Hereford.
It was all Burton and it looked as if a great line from Archer would result on a try bit the ball agonisingly slipped from his grasp. Next Zemele hacked through and was pulled back as he was the nearest chaser from either side. It wasn’t certain that he would score so a Penalty Try wasn’t in order however the offender might have been Yellow Carded on another day.
Still Burton attacked and next it was Titley who looked as if it he might score but was unable to gather a loose ball and ground it over the line.
Hereford broke from their twenty two for the first time in twenty minutes and English had his work cut out to get to a kick through and ground it a for a twenty two drop out. This action kick started a frantic last five minutes of end to end play but sadly each time Burton got within range they still couldn’t peg the score back into bonus point territory.
The youngsters had probably noted the forecast of how tough a trip to Hereford would be, however they gave a great account of themselves and were mighty unlucky not to get anything for their spirited performance.