Sir Daves search for a win....continues

A really impressive first half performance from the Harriers should have won the game today and given us, and Dave Hockaday, our first win of the season.  We built on our excellent showing at Altrincham midweek but sadly we didn't build on our first half today and ended up paying the price with a former Harrier scoring from lax defending.

We started the game with our latest new boy coming into the side as Matt Young came in at left back to move Lathaniel Rowe-Turner into midfield forcing Jordan Tunnicliffe onto the bench.  Also coming in for a rare start was Calvin Dinsley to many groans of disappointment but by the end of the game he had silenced those groans with an assured display.  The one that did catch the eye though was the lad from Bournemouth, Ben Whitfield, with an even more confident display that kept the Harriers surging forward at every opportunity.

On the bench was a returning Tahvon Campbell from injury but no sign of either Joe Ward or Aman Verma with rumours aplenty that Verma would be going out on loan soon.

The game was tentative at first with both sides looking the play the game the proper way with some nice crisp passing but for all that there wasn't all that much action until about twenty minutes in when the Sandgrounders had the first clear chance of the game when Cole Stockton curled an effort just the wrong side, or right side in our view, of Dean Snedkers upright.

Snedker was called into action soon after with a nice, clean save from Gary Jones' shot after he had been set up by the useful looking Louis Almond.  Following those two chances we began to wake up began to put some meat on our game.

Ben Whitfield, who had been dominating in midfield for us, had been played in on the corner of the area and from out of nothing fired in a shot that sped through the tightly packed area and onto the foot of the far post to be put back into play by Young but no one could get on it to send it home.

Ten minutes later and the same player had hit a bit more timber, or the modern day plastic coated aluminium equivalent, when his dipping shot from Jared Hodgkiss' cross bounced off the crossbar.  Apart from a later chance for Southport they had offered little since their earlier dominance and break time came with both sides going in level.

After that first half showing the fans were expecting us to knock on and go for glory but sadly Southport had other ideas.  They had got their intended point by halftime and that was good enough for them as they doubled up on both Whitfield and Callum Hassan to try and keep them in check.  Their continual time wasting wasn't helping matters and was something that the referee from Tewkesbury seemed oblivious to.

Hassan did get away from his markers enough to get in a shot from a spilled save from their keeper Max Crocombe but it was cleared off the line.  Strangely soon after that Hockaday put the big man out wide and bought on Reece Styche in place of Jordan Murphy.  Maybe in an effort to take the markers off him but Hassan looked isolated out wide and we lost any kind of threat from him completely with Styche once again trying too hard to please.  It seemed to many a substitution too soon.

Reece did get in on the action where he could though and had a couple of chances to get his name on the scoresheet but his glaring mistake when he overkicked the ball after finding himself one on one with the keeper will go down as another brilliant chance squandered in a long list of squandered Reece Styche chances.

The longer the half went on the quicker the fans frustration began to set in as we could see the time wasting going on and from ourselves too with slowly taken goal kicks, back passing and poor throw-ins when we should have been trying to keep possession as much as we could because you can't score without the ball.

It all came home to roost when seven minutes from the end the best player on the park, Whitfield, had a lapse in concentration and failed to close a 50-50 ball down and allowed the Southport man to cross the ball to the far post for Andy Bishop to power home a header and snatch the points from his former club.  It was a killer blow and our heads dropped in dis-belief - both the team and the fans!

We tried hard to get at least a point back but a combination of a packed Southport defence and more time wasting ensured it was never going to happen.

At least we now have a couple of weeks off from league worries now with our next game being a FA Cup game at Stourbridge.  Just like the old days in the 60's and 70's then.

 Goal for Southport: Bishop 83

REFEREE:

Mr D Eaton Tewkesbury