Venue: Cantilever Park Date: 24-08-24 Warrington Town 2 Harriers 1 Att: 1107 (away fans: 250) |
Harriers fall to the first defeat of the season at Warrington Town
The Harriers fell to their first defeat of the season at Warrington Town today after going into the lead after five minutes. A first goal for Ben Beresford, from a corner, opened the scoring for us but following that we failed to push on and allowed the hosts too much space on the ball until the inevitable happened just before the break when they drew level through Matthew McDonald.
A second goal for Town was added midway through the second half and we still failed to raise our game until it was almost all over. We stay in third place in the table after Scunthorpe Utd, who we play next Friday, drew at home to Chorley FC.
There was no change for us from the eleven that started the Brackley Town win on Tuesday. We started the game without Amari Morgan-Smith once again due to his concussion break and Beresford deputised for him once again. He made himself enough of a nuisance in the opening minutes to grab his first goal for us. On the bench Tom Palmer made way for new signing Tope Obadeyi.
Following the goal we continued to dominate the game for the next twenty minutes but that soon began to fade as Warrington got wise to the skills of Maz Kouhyar and that dominance began to fade. Joe Foulkes was finding plenty of room on his side of the park but when he got the ball he failed to bomb on as we’d usually expect from him and opted to play the ball back too often or loose it completely as an opposing defender came in.
As for Zak Brown the less said the better, sadly.
We had chances to score. An Ashley Hemmings shot went past the post while Paul Downing saw his header that went in the same direction. The Warrington goal came in the forty second minute when McDonald got on the end of a corner and rolled the ball into the net. Christian Dibble tried to get down to it but could only help it home.
We went into the break all square.
HT: 1 – 1
The second half was disappointing for the Harriers fans in attendance – some 250 of them. We never really got going and the manager Phil Brown made a double substitution on the hour. Zak Brown came off for David Davis while Seb Thompson took the place of Ben Beresford. The latter move left us without a target man until Tope Obadeyi came on to lead the line with Maliq Cadogan making way for him. There was no improvement.
The winning goal came a quarter of a hour from the end. The referee awarded the hosts a corner saying the ball had come off Alex Penny but it hadn’t. The ball came over and Mike O’Neill fired goalwards but Dibble managed to get a hand to it as it crossed the line. But did it? It didn’t look as if it had fully crossed over but the linesman confirmed with the referee that it had and the goal was given.
We began to try a bit harder after that and, with time running out, Dibble came up for a corner and the ball fell well for him but his connection was poor. A Warrington defender hooked the ball up the pitch and Dibble, on his way back, got to it first and played it back in but it fell once more to a home side player who then kicked it forward to Josh Miles who could only see a net without a keeper. He looped the ball into the air goalwards and missed an open goal.
The final move of the game was for us when another Downing header in front of goal was saved by their keeper Dan Atherton.
Time finally ran out and we fell to our first defeat of the season. Truth be told we deserved nothing from it anyway.
On to Monday afternoon and hopefully three points from an Oxford City side that lost 4-1 at home to South Shields today. A scoreline I’d love to see happen for us too but in our favour.
FT: 2 – 1
Goals for Warrington: McDonald 42, O’Neill 75
Goal for Harriers: Beresford 5
The Harriers Online MotM is: Luke Summerfield
Talk about the game here
Latest table and stats here
Warrington Town | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
Atherton | ||||
Southern | ![]() |
38 | ||
Grivosti | ![]() |
79 | ||
Clarke | ![]() |
5 | ||
Gumbs | ![]() |
|||
Sithole | ||||
Woods | ![]() |
83 | ||
O’Neill | ![]() |
![]() |
92 | |
Dixon | ||||
McDonald | ![]() |
|||
Bennett | ||||
Subs: | ||||
White | ![]() |
38 | ||
Hannigan | ![]() |
5 | ||
Rodwell-Grant | ![]() |
83 | ||
Gill | ![]() |
92 | ||
Miles | ![]() |
79 | ||
Harriers | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
Dibble | ||||
Foulkes | ![]() |
|||
Richards | ||||
Penny | ||||
Downing | ||||
Cadogan | ![]() |
66 | ||
Brown | ![]() |
60 | ||
Summerfield | ||||
Beresford | ![]() |
![]() |
66 | |
Hemmings | ||||
Kouhyar | ||||
Subs: | ||||
Devine | ||||
McNally | ||||
Thompson | ![]() |
60 | ||
Obadeyi | ![]() |
66 | ||
Davis | ![]() |
60 | ||
Referee: | ||||
Mr Shaun Taylor | ||||
Preston |