Holmes And Away

Harwood Bull was at Southport yesterday afternoon watching Hereford win 1-0.

Hereford made it two away wins in the space of 5 days, following up their impressive victory at Fylde with a less emphatic but well deserved 1-0 success at Southport, with Jack Holmes the scorer. The Bulls kept the same starting line up for this game – Visser in goal, a back four of Hodgkiss, Pendley, Amadi-Hollloway and Latty-Fairweather. Hanson deep, Lloyd and Thompson-Sommers holding the middle together and Maclean and Holmes supporting Barnett up front from wide positions.

The Bulls almost got off to a dream start when after two minutes Maclean was through one on one with the keeper. He took the ball round the goalie but with the angle fairly narrow tried to roll the ball in and a Southport defender got across to clear off the line.

The Bulls had the better of the first half with Southport looking sluggish and out of sorts. Having said that the home side came close to taking the lead in 14 minutes when a looping header by Anson dropped onto the angle of post and crossbar. There was a break in the play after 27 minutes when Hodgkiss went down with an injury and needed attention. 

He was unable to continue and was replaced by Levi Andoh, who made an impact almost immediately with a deep cross to Barnett who headed powerfully but into the side netting.

Hereford continued to dominate but didn’t create any clear chances. Southport had a couple of shots on goal one of which caused a bit of a scramble in the box but came to nothing. Overall a fairly confident performance by the Bulls in the first half. KTS was playing well, showing a bit more of a combative edge to his play and moving the ball effectively – basically doing what Lloyd does. Tyrone up front was winning some high balls but as is often the case his knock downs weren’t being picked up by a Hereford player.

Half time: Southport 0 Hereford 0

The Bulls came out unchanged for the second half, and got the breakthrough within five minutes. Holmes showed good control on the edge of the box, twisting and turning. With his back to goal he turned to get the shot off, and with a shot across the goal to the far post looking likely manged to squeeze a low one through a crowded penalty area inside the keeper’s near post, for a deserved lead.

If truth be told, the Bulls had a platform to build on and should have increased their lead against a poor Southport side. The closest they came to that was when another shot from Holmes was pushed wide by McMillan, Maclean turned the loose ball back across the area and it flashed across the face of the goal with no-one in a red shirt running in for what would have been an easy finish.

Southport started to come back into the game and Hereford endured a period of intense pressure and a series of corners. The Bulls seemed unable to clear the ball or doing anything to relieve the pressure. Visser made a couple of good saves including a point blank stop from a Doyle header. One blot on Visser’s performance was poor kicking, including two goal kicks that went straight into touch.

Yellow Card For Levi Andoh?

Really?

Holmes went off on 70 minutes to be replaced by Storey, a more positive substitution than we became used to in the Gowling era. His pace always has the potential to stretch defences, but he missed a great chance to put KTS through on goal with a badly overhit pass. With two minutes left Josh Miles made a good run for Southport and his low cross caused havoc in the Bulls defence but was somehow scrambled away.

Following that scare Hereford managed to a get a grip of things and played the time out. 

Amadi-Holloway Clears For Hereford

Storey got a yellow card for time wasting – having run the ball into the corner he kicked the ball away and received an immediate and totally unnecessary booking.  

After 3 minutes of time added on the ref brought things to a close. Another good result on the road, although we have to be grateful that Southport weren’t really on their game, otherwise things might have been different.

Full time: Southport 0 Hereford 1

Hereford FC: Visser, Hodgkiss (Andoh 28), Thompson-Sommers, McLean (Pinchard 90+2), Lloyd, Amadi-Holloway, Hanson, Pendley, Barnett, Holmes (Storey 70), Latty-Fairweather

Subs: Oppong, Livermore

 

Southport FC: McMillan, Oliver, C Doyle, Anson, Woods, Munro, Archer, Walton, Quansah, Watson, Bainbridge

Subs: Goudie, Miles, Heath, Hmami, Carberry

 

Attendance 1,015 (140 away)

 

Man of the Match? Not an easy call. Unlike Tuesday when Amadi-Holloway was by some distance the best player on the pitch there was no absolute stand out. My pick would be KTS for the reasons given earlier.

What else? Ah yes, the pies. My meat and potato pie scored a good eight out of ten and the individual cottage pies looked good and got a similar score, and the two ladies on the pie stall were very pleasant. The catering wasn’t all good though, had to wait about twenty minutes for someone to come and man the drinks van.

As we know, our pick for Gowling’s replacement has turned us down. Klukowski did say that he’s not interested in the job permanently, but maybe having seen that he can get a good performance out of this group of players he might think again? Given our budgetary constraints it might not be a bad move.

We’re in the dizzy heights of the top half of the table now. The last two performances have shown positivity, commitment and good teamwork. Long may that continue.