TENBURY United finally rid themselves of the ‘bridesmaids’ tag after lifting the HFL Senior Cup on Saturday with a 4-2 victory over Pegasus Reserves.

The team had looked like being the ‘nearly men’ this season, finishing runners-up in two other cup competitions as well in the Herefordshire League Premier Division.

But some stern words at half-time in their latest cup final, played at Bromyard’s Delahay Meadow, did the trick, allowing them to finish the campaign with some silverware in the trophy cabinet.

“It is probably the best season we’ve had for a long time,” admitted joint manager Aaron Morris.

“We won Division One two seasons ago after coming out of the West Midlands League but we have continued to strengthen and have pushed champions Wellington Colts all the way and reached three cup finals.

“Now we need to strengthen again and go that extra step and win the league. We’re not far away. If we win our final game [Tenbury were due to play Hinton last night] then we will finish five points behind Wellington.

“There have been a few games when we’ve only had ten or 11 players this season. If we can add a few more faces then it would mean we could go into every game with 15 or 16.”

Tenbury made the perfect start with Ryan Morris opening the scoring inside the first ten minutes following good work from skipper Mike Foster.

But Pegasus came back strongly, making the most of two defensive errors to take a 2-1 lead into the break.

Assistant boss Morris added: “Our first half performance was nothing short of abysmal. We got that early goal and then took our foot off the gas as though a few of the players thought it was going to be easy.

“A few harsh words were said at half-time by [joint manager] Nick Stocker and we made a few changes and that seemed to do the trick.”

Morris fired in the equaliser from the penalty spot early in the second period after brother Ryan had been fouled and Tenbury then went on to claim the silverware thanks to two goals from Foster.

The skipper almost capped a perfect day when he lobbed the keeper late on but instead of being able to celebrate a cup final hat-trick, the ball bounced on the rock hard surface and hit the crossbar.

Morris added: “It was a decent game. We had another couple of chances and they had one cleared off the line.

“We’d been disappointed to finish runners-up in two cups so it was a nice way to finish the season.”