Harriers need a kick up the arse

For the second game in a row the Harriers produced yet another poor performance that left their fans thinking that the play-offs are looking to be a distant dream for this season.  Following the Telford game at the weekend, when we rarely managed to put a pass together, Gary Whild apologised to the fans for the inept display only for, more or less, the same group of players to produce the same inept display once again.  What made this worse was that the game, against Welling Utd, was being played out in front of the BT cameras and also in front of just under two hundred fans from Hereford protesting against the way their club is being run down.

Under Whild we seem to have lost the ability to pass the ball to another red shirt and also the ability to create anything from midfield that could make us look like the force we were a few seasons ago under Steve Burr.  I'd go so far as saying that this team is the worst one we have seen since we got relegated from the Football League ten years ago and judging by the poor crowd of 1560 tonight, of which just under two hundred were Hereford fans, then it looks like the Harriers supporters are already voting with their feet.

We started the game without Josh Gowling following his fifth yellow card of the campaign against Telford so Jamie Grimes stepped into his place while Craig Reid returned to the starting eleven in place of Reece Styche.  He went and sat on the bench.

It was Welling that started the game the brighter with some crisp passing that we couldn't match.  In fact they continued to play the rest of the game in the same style while we could only hoof the ball forwards all the time.

It was against the run of play when we opened the scoring.  Jared Hodgkiss collected a cross on the right and took the ball forward before unleashing a strike that flew into the corner of the net although it did seem to take a slight deflection, or bobble, on the way in.  That was Jareds first goal for the Harriers.

Welling responded to the goal positively after picking holes through our slow to react defence.  Jamie Day came the closest to scoring for them when he hit the post with a shot that came from out of the blue.  They also had a header go inches wide just minutes later.  Our second goal came in the thirty ninth minute and was totally bizarre.

Kevin Nicholson sent a free kick goalwards only for the Welling keeper, Jon Henly, to rush out and try to punch it away but only succeeded in punching it straight at a player from where it rebounded into the net.  Opinions were mixed on whether it was an own goal or that it had hit Chey Dunkley and rolled in or had hit one of his own team mates and ended up the same way.  In the net.

The hapless Henly was in trouble again just a minute before the break when he rushed out of his area and collided with Craig Reid and one of his own players.  After lengthy treatment to both victims of the assault the keeper was yellow carded.

The visitors started the second half in the same way that they had started the first.  On top.

An early change was enforced on them when Louis Fazackerley was injured on the touchline and replaced by Arisitide Bassele a few moments later.  Welling changed formation to suit and began to dominate the game to such an extent that the Harriers failed to make any impression at all for the remaining forty odd minutes.

Within minutes of the substitution being made Welling pulled a goal back through leading scorer Harry Beautyman.  He picked up a pass from Ben Jefford and strode into the area with the ball at his feet while our defenders backed off him to let him fire the ball home from close range.  It was 2-1 now and the Harriers fans could sense a second, equalising, goal wouldn't be long in coming.

A couple of Harriers substitutions should have made the game secure for us but the arrival of Callum Gittings and Nathan Blissett on the scene didn't change the way we were playing all that much.  Blissett should have scored with a thunderous header that went the wrong side of the post and Reid should have done better with a shot that missed its target by about five miles to high.

The game fizzled out with the Hereford fans packing away their banners and the Harriers fans dribbling out of the ground totally un=impressed with what they had been watching.

We are crying out for someone creative to come into the side but that's looking very unlikely at the moment.  mainly because of Gary Whilds in-ability to realise that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Harriers this season.

 Goals for Harriers: Hodgkiss 14, Dunkley 39
 Goal for Welling: Beautyman 53

REFEREE:

Mr C Hicks Surrey