Harriers hold on for important win

The Harriers faced a second half onslaught on Adam Bartlett's goal as Wrexham battled to get a point back in this game.  A Brian Smikle goal mid-way through the first half gave us the lead, and the points, but a face injury to leading scorer Justin Richards early in the second half meant that we had no real threat up front to come back if we had given a goal away.

The luck was on our side today with three shots from Wrexham hitting the woodwork during the first half and we can also be thankful to Bartlett for saving what was a certain goal late on in the second half.  The end of the game was also marred by an altercation between the Harriers keeper and some away fans who had been throwing coins etc onto the pitch after Barts was supposed to have said something to them.

Todays game was played out in front of the biggest crowd at Aggborough since the visit of Hereford Utd just over three years ago.  The teams drew 1-1 that day in front of 3241 fans with 1031 coming over Bromyard Downs.

For the first twenty minutes we looked a bit shaky in defence and were getting exposed continually on both flanks.  Lee Baker was failing to mark his man and the first warning of what was to come came early on when Wes Baynes collected the ball from a Mike Williams crossfield pass and then unleashed a ferocious shot that beat Bartlett ends up and cannoned back off the upright.  Baker was hanging around in the middle of the park and tried to cover up for his mistake by rushing over but the ball was already on it's way back by then.

He didn't take that incident on board because it happened on at least two other occasions after that.  It wasn't until the second half that he seemed to realise that it was his job to mark players.

It took us another five minutes to come up with an answer to that close call when Martin Brittain got into the area but his shot wasn't strong enough to cause any real damage.  The game was becoming something of a midfield battle and Wrexham were starting to get on top of the game until out of the blue Brian Smikle gave us the lead and the winner.

Brittain had played Matt Barnes-Homer in on the touchline and MBH whipped over a cross that beat three Wrexham defenders to land just right for Junior to chest the ball down and volley it into the back of the net.

Apart from Baynes the visitors had another fast, direct winger that had been causing us problems and it was Nathan Woolfe that almost got them back into the game with the second shot to hit the post when he curled a shot past Bartlett again.  It was becoming our lucky day.

The game returned to being a finely balanced affair and both sides had chances to score without being convincing enough.  In the dying seconds of the half Jefferson Louis became the third Wrexham player to hit the wood when his free shot from close range almost punished the three Harriers defenders looking on without a care in the world.