Thank God for Callum Gittings

The Harriers made hard work of yet another game today when they finally managed to beat Welling 2-0 after struggling to make any real impression in front of goal all afternoon.  Even the gift of a penalty was spurned and it took until late on in the game, and the arrival of Callum Gittings, to make us look anything like a team in the top half of the table.

We started with an almost identical starting line-up as in the previous two games with just Amari Morgan-Smith dropping to the bench in favour of Adrian Cieslewicz.  On that bench was also Nathan Blissett but no room for Anthony Malbon who has to be presumed injured with him reportedly not at the game either.

Again, as at FGR last Tuesday evening, the Harriers passing was all at sixes and sevens with no one seemingly prepared to put their foot on the ball and actually look for a pass.  The only one truly creating anything was Cieslewicz but once any crosses went in there was either no one there to do anything with it or we were just too slow to take advantage of them.  The only real chance of note early on, if you can call twenty minutes early, was from Michael Gash who fired a weak shot goalwards for the Welling keeper, Lee Butcher, to push away easily enough.

Cieslewicz himself also tried his luck soon after but his tame shot, after doing all the hard work by giving the Welling defence the runaround, was too weak to cause any lasting damage.  Our last chance of a sub-standard half came courtesy of Nick Wright when his shot that was originally going wide was deflected at the keeper.

In the second period it was Welling that started the strongest without really threatening Danny Lewis' goal.  Ross Lafayette had a chance early in the half but shot straight at the Harriers custodian.

Again we were struggling to make any kind of impact on the game and this was obviously picked up by the Harriers manager, Gary Whild, when he made a change to the game that entailed removing Nick Wright in favour of Nathan Blissett.  Big Bliss's first move of the game was to hesitate with an open goal in front of him and opted to pass to O'Keefe instead who also opted to move the ball on for Gash and the chance was gone.

A few minutes later another change was made with Amari Morgan-Smith coming on in place of Cieslewicz leaving us with no wide man on the pitch.  Were we going to be faced with high balls straight down the middle?

The move seemed to pay off though when AMS burst into the area only to find himself bought down by Blaine Hudson.  With calls from the bench to let Gash take the spot kick that was ignored and the faller chose to take it himself.  His take was a bit on the weak side though and the keeper got to the ball easily and pushed it the other side of the upright to leave us with what amounted to a wasted opportunity.

With less than a quarter of a hour left Callum Gittings finally appeared on the scene in place of the injured Mickey Demetriou and the game took on a more positive stance.  Immediately we started to create something in midfield and the tenacious quality of Callum was there for all to see.

The fruits of that change came when he played Blissett through towards the byeline who then popped the ball into the area for Jack Byrne to move the ball on for Gash to slam it into the net.  1-0 up and there was no way back for Welling.

The game was finally sealed in the last five minutes of the game with the visitors defence at sea and Gittings swooping past them to send over an immaculate cross to Blissett who sent in an equally immaculate header that absolutely cannoned into the net from twelve yards out.

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't convincing but it was three points.  The only problem we have now is that we need to build on that at home to Cambridge on Tuesday evening and they'll be a different kettle of fish.

 Goals for Harriers: Gash 77, Blissett 84

REFEREE:

Mr J Smith