Bournville Head Coach Matt Price praised his side for their performance in horrendous conditions in a 13-6 defeat at Luctonians.
Heavy rain on top of rapidly thawing snow left pools of standing water across the pitch at Mortimer Park which was quickly churned up into a mudbath.
A strong downfield wind and a numbing cold added to the miserable conditions but Bournville dug in and came close to becoming only the second visiting side to win in deepest Herefordshire this season.
In the end Bournville had to settle for the consolation of a losing bonus point – which maintained their record of collecting at least a point from every away game this season – although that first win on the road remains elusive.
“For the vast majority of that game, apart from a couple of moments where we went off task and they punished us, we stuck to the game plan, we put them under pressure and caused them to have a couple of dodgy moments,” Price said.
“Luctonians definitely know that they have been in a game today. It could have been more than a point. In tight games it comes down to moments, a quick tap penalty or an offside against us and you lose field position.
“We have got to learn that at certain times we have to stick to the script and we don’t need to do anything off script. If we had done that today we would have been right in at the end. We have got to learn from that,
“What I am proud of – and I said this to the players at the end – is their effort and everything they put into that. It was a lot better performance collectively in terms of managing the game and understanding where we are to put us in the position where we were close.
“The conditions were horrendous in terms of mud and it’s difficult for us because we play on a 4G pitch where it doesn’t get muddy.
“It can take a lot of adjusting to but we spoke about it in the week. We knew what the weather forecast was and what the conditions were going to be.
“We said that middle third of the pitch between the two ten metre lines would be key. Whoever won that was going to have field position to kick into the corner and put pressure on the other team.
“I think Luctonians just edged it. A couple of little errors from us allowed them to edge that area. We have come a long way in our performances away from home it’s just that final little bit that we needed and we almost had it today.”
