Pride in defeat as Park made promotion chasers fight for victory

A challenging sequence of game saw Park tasked with playing each of Midlands 3 West South’s top three clubs – with two being away from home at Droitwich and this mission to Herefordshire.
Having been soundly beaten at home by third-placed Evesham last weekend, Manor travelled in hope rather than expectation with a threadbare squad hampered by injuries and unavailable players.
In their way stood a Ledbury side closing in on promotion via the runners up spot.
Having lost only one of their last seven home games – that to champions Droitwich – Ledbury had a try-scoring bonus point wrapped up by half-time.
But at interval, Park trailed 28-11 as Chris Goode scored a try and fly-half Callum Bishop slotted over two penalties to punish a Ledbury side who lost four players to the sin bin in the opening 40 minutes.
Soon after the restart Park added a second when Matt Green reacted superbly in a line out to dive over in the corner.
Ultimately, Ledbury were too strong for Park who never really looked like repeating the feat of 2013’s visit to Ross Road when they picked up an 8-7 win.
However, neither did they look like surrendering and suffering a 92-8 loss like when they last played at Ledbury – who maintained their three-point lead over Evesham with four games remaining.
Such were Park’s selection issues they were forced into fielding top-scoring hooker Stephen Ballard at the unfamiliar position of full-back. The substitutes bench was also manned by the second-team trio of Michael Crockwell, Ben Davis and Jordan Taylor – who made his first team debut in the second-half.
Park have five games left, starting with another lengthy trip to Upton-on-Severn in a rearranged game this weekend.
They hold a 13-point lead over the relegation zone with four of their remaining games against sides in the bottom four. The other being against Old Coventrians who have lost their last two games conceding more than 100 points and scoring none.