Silky Harriers make it three wins on the trot

The un-stoppable Harriers marched on for the third game in a row after an exhilarating first half stormer against a hapless Macclesfield Town with three goals that left the visitors so shellshocked that they had to do a major change around after our final goal went in.  That was after only twenty seven minutes and one of those sacrificed was former Harrier Reece Styche showing signs of his petulance already.

With the disappointment of hearing that wizard midfielder Elton N'Gwatala was going to be out for up to six weeks with a knee injury it wasn't going to be an un-changed side that came out onto the pitch.  In his place was Tyrone Williams making his first ever start for the Reds so pushing Luke Maxwell further into the park.  Onto the bench came Jordan Jones after being out of favour for a while now.

As against Eastleigh on Tuesday our first half display was a thing of beauty while the second half was workmanlike.  A first forty five minutes of quality passing produced the goods a little later today but ten minutes is still a good time to get your first goal since your return to the club.  We had already come close three times before Keith Lowe scored.

A corner was awarded our way and taken by Ben Whitfield to the far post where Lowe bundled it over the line, kind of, although from where I was sat it didn't looked to have gone in but the linesman said so and it stands.  Later on looking at the video it did appear that the keeper scooped it back out of the net but it was great to be cheering so early once again.

Six minutes later and it was Harriers two goals to the good and cruising.  Again Whitfield played a crucial part, on what could be his last appearance for us if Bournemouth don't agree to a loan extension, when he played a through ball that Harry White stormed on to and forced the keeper, Shwan Jalal, to fumble the ball and then allow it to roll over the line.  That was Whites second goal in two games and he looks the real deal.  More than can be said of Matt Barnes-Homer then.

Another six minutes.  Another goal.

This time it was another new boy getting his second goal in a row for us and this time it came against his old club.  Bet that pleased his former fans.  This time Luke Maxwell harried a Macc midfielder into making a mistake and robbed him of the ball to give Whitfield possession again.  He crossed the ball into the the path of Arthur Gnahoua for him to sweep home with ease.

Panic stations set in on the Macclesfield bench and two swift changes happened that saw Rhys Turner and Reece Styche withdrawn from the game with less than thirty minutes on the clock.  On came Kristian Dennis and Danny Rowe to rescue the situation.  Dennis is their leading score so it was a mystery why he didn't start in the first place.

The visitors improved slightly with that change and did their best to stifle Whitfields runs.  They began to put pressure on our back line too and came close when the dangerous Danny Whitaker fired goalwards to force Dean Snedker into parrying the ball away.  Dennis came close too with a shot across the face of the goal from Dennis that went just beyond the far post.

We went into the break looking good value for further goals.

The second half was no where near as good as the first, from our point of view.  We had lost our flair in the centre of the park and for long spells Whitfield never had sight of the ball and our defenders began to launch it forwards for Harry White to chase.  Shades of the Gary Whild style of play came to mind.

Macclesfield hadn't got much idea how to break us down and it was left to their best two players, Whitaker and Dennis to try their best against hopeless odds.  The irritating Jack Sampson tried his luck with a shot that went wide and we made a few changes to combat the threat.  On came Evan Garnett to replace White followed soon after by Omari Patrick for the exhausted Whitfield and both went off to rousing applause from the Harriers contingent.

We were still finding it hard to create much and it was left to Ousmane Fané to do most of it by himself.  He supplied Patrick with our best chance of scoring in this period when he played the ball forward for the sub to run onto and get a shot in on goal but he was blocked from advancing further by Andy Halls.

With time running out to score a fourth goal we had a bit of a setback to keeping a clean sheet when, in the ninetieth minute, Macclesfield scored a consolation goal.  They were given a free kick on the edge of the area after a push on Dennis by Kelvin Langmead and it was Dennis himself that took it.

Ironically the conversion was a joy to behold with his stunning strike curling unstoppably past Snedker and into the net.  It was too late for them and four minutes of injury time was played out securely by the Reds and took us three further points to safety.

We now face a real tough game on Tuesday when we finally get to go to Cheltenham after numerous cancellations.  It's going to be tough but a month ago we would have been expecting a massive drubbing.  Now we can go there knowing that we could easily go there and come back home with a point.  Maybe even three.

 Goals for Harriers: Lowe 10, White 16, Gnahoua 23
 Goals for Macclesfield: Dennis 90

REFEREE:

Mr S Rushton Staffordshire