29-08-22. Match report Vs Brackley Town

Cheese to Chalk mate. Cheese to Chalk

Report: Phil Lench

What a difference that rubbish was to Saturdays home win against Peterborough Sports. Then we saw a side well drilled in passing the ball and attacking on the break along with two well taken goals that won us the game. Today we saw nothing, zilch, nothing.

We’re a team that are supposed to be full time and losing out, mentally and tactically, against a part time team that are well organised and usually have a plan but today Brackleys’ plan wasn’t needed. We did it all for them. Apart from the first five minutes, when we tried to get something going, it was just a succession of long balls over the top to Amari Morgan-Smith that he had no hope of getting at due to the two tall defenders marking him. If he’d ever had the good fortune to win the ball he’d have had no one to pass it to anyway.

That early ‘possession’ soon came to an end with Brackleys first foray forward when poor defending failed to stop the run of Wes York who skipped past Ben Margetson to then move forward and lob the ball over the head of the Harriers keeper Tom Palmer.

We had no real answer to that and continued in the same vein as before. Launch it Baby, launch it.

At the end of the half Callum Stead left Krystian Pearce for dead out wide and fired towards Palmer but the keeper did well to close his shot down and parry it away for an unproductive corner. A minute later Stead repeated the move but this time Pearce got enough on the ball to clear it from his feet. Stead semi-retaliated by clipping Pearces ankle and leaving the defender needing treatment. 

HT: 1 – 0

The second period we started as if we’d had a deserved rollicking. We looked more up for it and actually began to pass the ball around even if we were rarely finding a player. Pearces injury obviously hadn’t responded to treatment at the break and Joe Foulkes came on to replace him with Margetson taking over as the central defender. Brackley were still the team on top though.

Soon after Ashley Hemmings came on for the off the pace Keziah Martin and we began to look like more of a team. We were still relying on the long ball up to AMS though and it still wasn’t working.

Brackley upped the tempo and started to test Palmer more and more, coming close to extending the lead through corners and free kicks that either came close or were saved by the Harriers keeper. Something had to give and it came from the best move of the game from both sides. 

The miniscule winger, Cosmos Matwasa, won the race to the touchline against the Harriers defence and whipped in a superb cross to the far post where Jimmy Armson met the ball perfectly and powered his header past the helpless Palmer and at the same time sealed the points for his side. In response we sent on Ethan Freemantle in place of Zak Brown to try and get a couple of goals back?

The appearance of Ethan gave the Brackley defenders something to do but it was all too late for us. The game fizzled out along with any enthusiasm from the travelling three hundred or so fans. We deserve something more than that shower of….. 

FT: 2 – 0

Goals for Brackley Town: York 8, Armson 67

The Harriers Online MotM is: Shane Byrne

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Brackley Town	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Lewis
Carline
Calder
J Richards
Jones
Dean
Matwasa
Armson
Flanagan			89
Stead
York
Subs:
Lopes
Cullinane-Liburd
Putz			89
Massey
Yusuf
Harriers	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Palmer
Margetson
C Richards
Knight-Percival
Pearce			57
Byrne
Brown			72
Lowe
Morgan-Smith
Martin			66
Ceesay
Subs:
Leak
Hemmings			66
Foulkes			57
Rogers
Freemantle			72
Referee:
Mr Ruebyn Ricardo
Leicestershire