Clueless Harriers fall to another defeat

Report by Harry Taylor

Another inadequate performance from the Harriers saw Eastbourne beat them 2-0 today at Aggborough.  Harriers, who were expected to win and have never lost against Eastbourne before, completely under performed and allowed Eastbourne to make the most of this by scoring in the first half and then again in the 90th minute stoppage time to put Harriers to the sword.

The Harriers started off in a 4-4-2 formation with Robbie Matthews returning to the side in place of John Finnegan.  This change was to be reversed in the 17th minute when Matthews went down with a reoccurrence of his thigh injury that has plagued him in the past few weeks and so Finnegan came on in his place.

The game started fairly evenly with Harriers getting a few corners in the first ten minutes, the majority of them wasted by Hadley apart from the first one which culminated in a Brian Smikle toe-poke towards the goal that was saved well by Eastbournes' second string keeper Michael Jordan who was in for the suspended Danny Knowles.

Kidderminster almost took the lead in the 21st minute when the ball was played over the top and Matthew Barnes-Homer put it into the goal only for it to be ruled offside.  Lee Baker also had a pile driver fly over the Eastbourne goal.

Borough then took the lead with ten minutes of the first half remaining.  A ball in from the right from Jamie Taylor was met by Nathan Crabb who had got away from his marker, Lee Baker, and he made no mistake in putting the ball into the Dean Coleman's bottom right hand corner.  Much to the Harriers fans anger Crabb then seemed to gesture towards the Harriers fans at the back of the Town End.

Harriers also went on to hit the bar via Chris McPhee and it was then headed off the line from the Eastbourne centre back Marc Pullan.  Hadley's corner once again resulted in nothing for Harriers.

HT: 0 - 1

The Harriers started the second half by bringing off the ineffectual John Finnigan for Aaron Farrell.

Unfortunately this change didn't seem to spark the Harriers into doing anything and our best chance after this came in the 60th minute when Matthew Barnes-Homer spooned a shot well wide of the Eastbourne goal into the back of the Harriers end.  Hadley was the next player to have a chance for Harriers after he flew into the box and powered a shot well wide of the near post.

Kidderminster then had to be very thankful after Lee Baker kept Harriers in the game when a Simon Weatherstone shot was blocked on the line and cleared by the ex-West Brom defender.  Gary Elphick then had a shot for Eastbourne which was well saved by the Harriers number one, Dean Coleman.

We then failed to get back into the game at all until in the 89th minute McPhee had a drive that was questionably hand balled then cleared by the Eastbourne defender, but the referee was oblivious to this and the game went on.

Jamie Taylor then wrapped the game up for Eastbourne with a goal in the last minute of stoppage time which left Dean Coleman grasping thin air.

The Harriers were outplayed at times and severely under performed in this game; at least half of the Kidderminster players didn't have a good game at all with Coleman, McPhee and Baker arguably the only ones to come out of the game with any credit.

Eastbourne performed well and made the most of the Harriers poor performance by scoring two goals and getting three vital points.

Next up for Harriers is Mansfield Town on Tuesday night and they will be a very tough challenge for us. We'll suffer heavily if we turn out the same performance against Mansfield as we did today.

FT: 0 - 2

 Goals for Eastbourne: N Crabb 37, Taylor 90