Harpenden II: 3
Winchmore Hill & Enf.: 2

28.01.06

Having experienced defeat for the first time in two months the week before, Steve Piercy’s second string were keen to get their season back on track with the visit of the north London strugglers.

Piercy’s pre-match team talk had two strands, one demanding composure when the blues had the ball and aggression when they didn’t, and the other focusing on starting strongly and getting an early lead. His team had clearly listened, and when the ball broke free at the top of the Winchmore D with just thirty seconds on the clock, erstwhile skipper Fraser Tant conjured up half a yard of space and buried a sweet strike in the corner.

The visitors’ results in Div 3 thus far suggest that while they lose regularly, it’s normally just by the odd goal in three or five and not without a fight. Having secured the lead, it was imperative that the blues retained and ideally extended it to give themselves some breathing space. But, it wasn’t to be, and the Winchmore Hill soon found themselves level when a somewhat harshly awarded short-corner was eased past a blues keeper Ben Brind five minutes later.

The situation plummeted further for Harpenden when the visitors scored again after a defensive error was punished by the Winchmore Hill midfield. With Harps’ copper-topped midfield kingpin Rob Arnby unusually quiet, his side were struggling to win the midfield battle, although acting centre back Dave Waters was to the manor born in his new role and kept the threat to a minimum. Arnsby sparked back to life with a defence-splitting reverse pass to pick out Tant’s arcing run, only for the front-man to be upended dramatically by the keeper and have to hobble out of the half. Fortunately for the blues, his replacement Toby Pickard was on hand to slide in at the far post minutes later to get on the end of Paul Nash’s wicked cross and bring Harps to parity.

At two-all at the break, Piercy knew the points were there for the taking but that the blues would have to work for them. “The points were there for the taking.” said the skipper “but I knew we’d have to work for them. So at the break, I told the lads that the points were there for the taking but that we’d have to work for them”. Defeat to Shefford the week before had left the blues 6 points adrift of third place, so a victory was essential if promotion was to remain viable. Winchmore Hill, meanwhile, clearly felt that the way to get something out of the game was to out-muscle the Harpenden, and a number of visiting players were a might fortunate not to see yellow for some somewhat clumsy challenges. From one of these, the blues were awarded a penalty corner, from which Niall McAlister was afforded far too much time to make his mind up and the veteran Irish poacher slotted home after a mazy dribble.

Having seen a lead overturned once already, Harpenden were wary of making the same mistake again. However, in their efforts to secure a two-goal lead, they were perhaps guilty of naivety, pushing forward to score and giving the ball away too frequently rather than simply focussing on ball retention. McAlister spurned a great chance to put the side 4-2 up by shooting from a narrow angle when the square ball might have been a better option, but other than this the blues spent more time than they would have liked defending. A succession of short corners were kept out by a combination of Brind and his defensive colleagues, and from the last strike of the game, the visitors saw a sweet strike rebound off the post to safety.

So the blues head to high-flyers Rickmansworth on Saturday in good spirits, looking for another win to keep them in the race for promotion.

Toby Pickard: Brave equaliser