Harriers put paid to Lincolns hopes

The Harriers find themselves in the 1st round of the FA Trophy following this 3-1 win at home, in a possible banana skin game, to Lincoln Utd.  We have been defeated by the same team before in the Trophy, after a replay, and so this time we had to make sure at the first time of asking.

With a couple of changes to the line-up from the Tuesday night game against Gloucester City we kicked off with Ashley Carter in place of Keith Lowe, Sam Austin in for Arthur Gnahoua while Elton N'Gwatala went to the bench alongside Gnahoua.  Liam Truslove took his place.  Lowe wasn't on the bench at all but Wayne Thomas was on his return from a loan spell at Altrincham.

It took a while for the Reds to get going even though we were domination the early stages of the game.  Andre Brown and Tyrell Waite were guilty of trying to overplay in front of the goal but finally, on the fifteen minute mark, Tyrone Williams burst forward and crossed the ball in for Brown to head just over the bar.  That was the trigger to launch more forays on goal and Lincoln began to wilt but allowing their keeper Jake Turner to shine.  It was down to his heroics that we went in to the break with only a one goal lead.

Waite, Carter and Jordan Tunnicliffe all had chances to open the scoring before Liam Truslove got the one we were waiting for.

A corner taken by James McQuilkin was played in towards the Lincoln area but cleared only as far as the edge of the area where Truslove was handily placed to return the ball back in with venom only for it to come back to him.  He made no such mistake this time and the ball nestled in the back of the Lincoln net for the first time in the game.

The floodgates should have opened following the goal but again the chances were going begging until the whistle went for the break and the players trooped off the field.

The second half commenced with Lincoln kicking off and showing a bit of purpose as they went in search of an early equaliser but sadly for them it wasn't going to happen.  Within three minutes our lead was doubled and we were home.

Tyrell Waite was played in and took the ball towards Turners goal where he fired in but the keeper parried it away but only as far as Truslove who needed no invitation to rifle in his eighth goal of the season even though he has only started two games now.  His previous starting goal came in the 2-0 win at Harrogate a few weeks ago.

With the Harriers now well on top the game became a joy to watch with some intelligent one touch football seeing the Reds rip the lower placed visitors to pieces.  This was another game that we could have ended with double figures and by the time the third goal went in that looked to be on the cards.

This time it was Zaine Francis-Angol that became the instigator when he interchanged passes with Waite before the latter drove across the face of the goal to pick out Andre Brown lurking.  He fired home from close range to cap a performance that had seen him come close so often but no cigar.

Now that we were comfortably home we then began to bring on the substitutes with McQuilkin the first to make way for Mani Dieseruvwe.  For possibly the first time this season we were playing two centre forwards together and the chances were beginning to come even thicker and faster but amazingly we couldn't seem to get the ball in the net again although Sam Austin came close to rewarding his rampaging runs with a goal when his effort crashed off the top of the bar.

With us looking odds on for our third 3-0 win in consecutive games we then blotted our copybook.  Young keeper Tom Palmer had come on for his debut a couple of minutes previous but could do nothing about the consolation Lincoln goal.  They had just gone close when James Blunden headed over from a free kick but from a corner a minute later he had no chance of stopping Sean Wrights header at the far post from going in the net.

We now go into the hat for the draw on Monday when the 'big teams?' enter the contest but I'll be happy with another lower ranked club for the time being.

 Goals for Harriers: Truslove 33, 48, A Brown 55
 Goal for Lincoln: Wright 89

REFEREE:

Mr M Donohue Manchester