GRAHAM Turner is confident the rest of his Hereford United squad can make up for the devastating loss of Ben Smith.

The in-form midfielder will almost certainly miss the rest of the season after dislocating his shoulder in the 5-2 win at Gravesend last week.

It's a big blow to their Nationwide Conf-erence title aspirations, but Turner said ahead of today's home clash with Woking: "There's no denying that Ben has been a big influence on us this season but I'm confident that we have enough good players in the squad to make up for his loss.

"Certainly at Gravesend the players showed that they can perform without Ben and though his injury was a blow to them too, you can see that they have the belief to get results without him.

"Ben will go and see a specialist next week but it looks highly likely that he'll need to have his shoulder pinned now and that will mean that he'll be out for about four months, ruling him out for the rest of the season. We wish him all the best for his recovery and hopefully he'll get back to full fitness as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, Anwar Uddin has been full of praise for Hereford after his two-month loan period at Edgar Street ended. The defender has now returned to Bristol Rovers but said: "I had a brilliant time at Hereford. I'm glad that I went. I didn't know much about the Conference before I went there, but I was impressed. It's a good standard and the training was good because Hereford are full-time.

"If you haven't played for a long time, which was the situation I was in before I went to Hereford, your confidence suffers and you start to question your ability.

"But I've gone there, done very well and feel good in myself. As the games went on I got stronger and stronger and that's the whole point in me going there."