First Luke Jones (right) went down, with no one near him, clutching his leg. Obviously in agony he called the Harriers physio, Gavin Crowe, on and that was the last we saw of him. Michael Briscoe replaced him for his first game of the season. Ten minutes later and Mike Williams also went off injured.He had just been skinned by Lutons' Amari Morgan-Smith to lay on their first goal. The Harriers captain had no chance keeping up with the strikers pace and it was obvious why. Immediately after the goal he went off with a hip injury and Scott Phelan came on in his place leaving us with just one substitute option for the remaining fifty minutes of game time.
Neither player will take part in the Telford game so along with Danny Lewis (cruciate) and Dave Hankin (ankle) we have a much depleted squad at Steve Burrs disposal. It has been mentioned that we'll be getting Robert Thompson-Brown back from loan at Solihull Moors and possibly a loan keeper to cover Danny. We could also do with a proper left back on loan to cover Williams' place for a while.
After years of being in the wilderness Telford finally got promoted back into non leagues top flight last season. So far results for them have been mixed without being disastrous but they can sometimes get the occasional win that keeps them ticking over.
On Saturday they lost 2-1 at Barrow and afterwards the Telford manager, Andy Sinton, complained that they should have got a result there after having a penalty given against them. Yes Andy, we all have that, get over it.
Telford have a couple of former Harriers on their books with Stuart Whitehead and James Lawrie both there with the latter out on loan at Altrincham for a while. They also have Greg Mills playing for them once more after he left them last season and trialled for us but on the eve of signing for us opted to return to Telford instead.
Coming from the other direction a couple of seasons ago was Lee Vaughan who signed for the Harriers at the start of last season.
Along with Lawrie going out on loan Telford have also sent striker Alex Meechan on loan to Harrogate Town for a month while, at the same time, bringing in Conal Platt on loan from Cambridge Utd to join up with his former team mate there, Courtney Pitt.
This game would be easily winnable for us at the best of times but with our current injury problems our task has been made harder. We'll really need to bounce back from the Luton defeat if we aim to get a result and I'm a bit worried that might not be the easiest ask at the moment.
Photo © KHFC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Lyness, Vaughan, Sharpe, Demetriou, Byrne, Phelan, Briscoe, Marshall, Storer, Vincent, Guinan, N Wright, T Wright, Matt, Gittings, Marc Williams, Thompson-Brown, Medley.
AFC Telford from:
Young, Robinson, Evans, Salmon, Newton, Rodgers, Whitehead, Killock, Reid, Trainer, Platt, Brown, Adams, Samuels, Rooney, Preston, King, Farrell, Davies, Pitt, Valentine, Mills, Sharp, Weir-Daley, Proudlock.
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