HEREFORDSHIRE gave a good account of themselves in the annual West Midlands Netball Tournament at Walsall, despite finishing seventh from eight counties.

Herefordshire were the lowest ranked team in the competition alongside Staffordshire and fittingly there was little to separate the two teams when they met in a 13-13 draw.

Herefordshire were thrilled to take the scalp of old rivals Worcester-shire, producing a convincing 19-6 win and denying their opponents a point by ensuring they did not achieve half of their score.

However, they were unable to sustain this form, losing 25-11 to Shropshire and succumbing 26-12 and 18- 7 to South Staffs and Warwickshire respectively.

Gloucestershire and Birmingham proved equally daunting, with losses of 25-12 and 23-10 against these heavyweights.

The Under-18s battled hard against some strong contenders and matched the seniors with a seventh-placed finish.

The youngsters were delighted to pull off a hard fought 11-10 victory against Shropshire, one of only a handful of junior wins recorded in ten years of competing at the tournament.

Despite losses of 15-10, 12-8 and 10-7 to Gloucestershire, South Staffs and Worcestershire respectively, they gained valuable points for securing 50% scores and this just gave them the edge in the final placings.

However, they were unable to repeat this with the remainder of their matches and went down to Birmingham 29-5, Staffordshire 18-6 and Warwickshire 20-5.

Herefordshire must now await the results of the final ECL fixtures to find out their placing in the English Counties League.

Currently lying in second place, they are waiting to receive the five points which should be theirs following East Devon's cancellation of their fixture on the March 9.

With fourth-placed Guernsey having two matches to play, one of which involves leaders Cornwall, Herefordshire could well be looking at a runners-up spot, and with it a possible play off place for promotion to Division 4.