Harriers 0 Burton Albion 2

Another double for the visiting team ended with the Harriers losing their second home friendly in the space of a few days.  On Saturday it was a Saido Berahino brace for West Brom and this evening it was Marcus Harness who provided both goals for Burton Albion.

Played in intense heat on the hottest day of the year so far it was never going to be a full pelt type of game and the referee sensibly stopped the game a few times for water breaks.  Sadly that was the only sensible thing about him with some bizarre decision making mostly in favour of Burton.

Again we had named some more members of the Trialist family with three of them starting the game wearing the numbers 8, 9 and 11 shirts.  Pleasingly the 9 and 11 looked to have something about them and when the number 11 went off during the second half he received a good round of applause.  Probably means we won't see him again now.  Burton named ex Sheffield Utd man Lee Williamson in the starting eleven even though he was playing as a trialist.

It took just seven minutes for the visitors to open the scoring when Marcus harness pounced on a poor back pass and slotted the ball easily past Sam Hornby, on loan to us from Burton, in the Harriers goal but minutes later the same player squandered an even better chance to score when he again broke free but this time instead of going on to score he doubled back to find someone to pass it too and the move broke down.

The Harriers pressed but every time we got into a shooting position the move broke down with either too many passes or no one available to pass the ball to.  Our first real sight of goal came for Elton N'Gwatala when he found himself clear for once but then sent the ball well wide.

The second half we started with a little more purpose and we could have scored three in as many minutes if we'd had our shooting boots on.  Trialist (9) forced a corner after the Burton keeper Stephen Bywater tipped his goalbound shot over and then Wayne Thomas glanced the corner ball against the bar.  Andre Brown also tried his luck from distance only to watch it go just above the bar.

Not the optimum moment to start making changes but we did.  Off went Trialist (8) and Ash Carter to be replaced by Arthur Gnahoua and Keith Lowe and a few minutes later Harness got his second goal.  Hornby bought down Tom Naylor on the byeline even though the Burton man wasn't heading for goal and the ball would have gone out of play anyway.  Harness converted the spot kick.

We made a load of changes legally after a water break while Burton made theirs secretly while no one was looking but concentrating on their bottles of water.

It might have been the two goal cushion but Burton seemed happy just to pass the ball around while we went in search of a consolation goal that never came.  Sam Austin and Arthur Gnahoua tried their best but it wasn't going to be and we slipped to another defeat but one that we would have learnt from and build on.

Harriers:
Hornby, Williams (Smith), Francis-Angol, Fané (Clarke), Thomas, Carter (Lowe), Austin, Trialist 8 (Trialist 15), Trialist 9 (Brown), N'Gwatala (McQuilkin), Trialist 11 (Gnahoua).

Subs: Trialist GK, Hancocks, Smith, Lowe, McQuilkin, Forsyth, Gnahoua, Brown, Clarke, Trialist 15, Trialist A.

Burton:
Bywater, Edwards, Reilly (McCrory), Mousinho (Irvine), Delaney (McLaughlin), Fox, Williamson (Akins), Naylor (Flanagan), Butcher (Beavon), Palmer (Turner), Harness (O'Grady).

Subs: McLaughlin, Flanagan, Turner, Atkins, McCory, Irvine, O'Grady, Beavon.

Ref: Mr J Brooks (Leicestershire)

Att: 607 (80 away)