Match Centre

Dudley Kingswinford 22 Hereford 14 (Saturday 26thSeptember 2026)

Dudley Kingswinford 22 Hereford 14 (Saturday 26thSeptember 2026)

Dudley Kingswinford kicked off and with the help of a couple of penalties established an attacking position inside the Hereford half. Within minutes they came close to taking an early lead. when a neat cross kick only just eluded their right wing over the dead ball line.Following a lineout near the Hereford goal line, the DK forwards drove over for the opening try within 5 minutes. The conversion attempt was wide. A period of end-to-end play ended when DK were awarded a penalty, ten yards out and between the posts. They caught Hereford by surprise with a tap penalty, driving over under the sticks for a second try. This time the conversion was good and after 16 minutes DK had a 12-point lead. 

Hereford increased their physicality and reduced the deficit with a converted try, they worked their way closer to the DK goal line and from a lineout the catch and drive enabled Scott Robinson to touch down for the try to which Josh Wright added the extra points.Hereford were well in the game and some of the interlinking playbetween backs and forwards was giving DK problems. With half time approaching it was DK who added to the score. A penalty to touch was driven over the line for a try, but the conversion was wide. The Wyesider’s response was immediate, some good phases of play forced a penalty and Sam Roberts found a good touch in the corner. The catch and drive crabbed across field, so scrum half Rob Yeo went blind and fed Zac Bullock, who dived over for the try. Josh Wright’s conversion took the score to 17 - 14 and all to play for.

Dk came out for the second half fast out of the blocks. Hereford picked up the pace again and the game was well balanced until Tom Ewins received a yellow card. From the restart DK moved the ball wide and found a gap in the left-hand corner. The conversion attempt was not successful. For a period in the second half the game developed a bit of niggle and the yellow card was shown twice to DK as well as once to Hereford’s Tom Ewins and Zac Bullock who was shown two, leading to a red. For the last 25 minutes, Hereford forwards and backs worked hard to reduce the deficit, but despite getting into good field position were unable any impression on the scoreboard which remained at 22 - 14.

“We were slow out of the blocks” said Director of Rugby, Dean Powell “DK came out firing. Indiscipline our Achille’s heel let us down again, we conceded 4 penalties within ten minutes which cost us 2 early tries. When we increased our physicality, we got ourselves into the game and reduced the deficit. Such is the strength of this league that on their day, any team is capable of beating any other, this shows how important it is to take something away from every game. Today all our hard work has left us with nothing to take away, only the lessons to learn, whilst all the other losing teams in our league got at least 1 point. This is disappointing when we had made the opportunities to do better. I was pleased with patches of our play, but there is work to be done on the training paddock. Our kicking game needs to be much better, we should be looking for space, not kicking it back to the opposition. We must learn from our mistakes. I have a special mention to the 4 players making 1st team debuts today Zac Bullock, Cory Harper, Rupeni Viseinavanua & Rob Yeo.

The 1870s had a well earned win over local rivals Worcester II at Wyeside, by 29 points to 28, our scorers were tries Archie Langford, Damian Miller, Harvey Vaughan, Tom Williams and a penalty try, Connor Sullivan kicked a conversion. Next week the 1st team have no game as their scheduled opponents Edwardians have withdrawn from the league. Their next game is Drybrook away on October 10th. Next week the 1870s travel to play Dudley Kingswinford II.