STEVENAGE 1 : 6
HARPENDEN II: 1
23.10.04

This weekend saw Harpenden 2's travel to Stevenage to play the free scoring and undefeated league leaders on their own ground.

In front of a vociferous home crowd, the importance of being able to play calmly and to hold the ball strongly through the midfield were two of the points made if the Blues were going to be able to contain their opposition. Unfortunately these instructions didn't help a determined Harpenden and, after just 30 seconds they were behind, a quick move breaking through the Harpenden defence and Ben Brind was left with no chance as the ball was swept past him. side as they were overrun in the first 15 minutes of the match. The tone of the game had been set, with rapid Stevenage movements that left the Harpenden defence reeling. Stevenage's opening goal came after only a couple of minutes and it A second goal was duly added a few minutes later and the visitors looked as thought they could be on the receiving end of a very heavy defeat.

However the blues slowly began to drag themselves back into the game with the defence of Waters, Lunn, Munton and Liles playing superbly in the face of a very skilful opposition. The Blues adopted a counter-attacking strategy that began to work with Niall McAlister, David Jeffrey and Ben Thompson fighting for possession in the middle of the pitch. Towards the end of the half, Harpenden got themselves a goal through McAlister – his first 2s goal for 18 months. He was left in space in the D and when his first shot rebounded back to him off a Stevenage foot everybody hesitated, except for the veteran Irish Poacher who drilled the ball onto the backboard for Harpenden's only goal of the game.

At half-time, Harpenden's senior players called for more composure on the ball and to try and channel the opposition attacks out wide rather than down the centre. The display in the second half was a lot better than the one shown in the first half but Harpenden could not seem to hold onto the ball for long enough in order to put together any periods of sustained pressure. The Stevenage defence was well drilled and seemed capable of dealing with the threats that the blues were creating. Throughout the second half, Stevenage scored at regular intervals in order to put their opposition further behind in the game. No matter what the Blues tried their opposition were always finding an extra man that was not being marked and making that man count in their build up play. Even the sight of a Stevenage forward being sent airborne by Brind could not shake the Stevenage players’ confidence and, had it not been for the Harpenden stopper and his defence, the score would have been a lot more than the 6-1 defeat it turned out to be.

Harpenden must hope that their players can put this defeat out of their heads as quickly as possible and start to concentrate on the visit of Royston to the Brache next weekend, where they will looking to recover their form and gain another valuable three points off a team who are in the wrong half of the table

Report by Chris Parsons

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