First half matters

After a gap of almost three weeks, Hereford restart their National League North campaign this Saturday with a trip to misfiring and beatable Kings Lynn. It’s a time gap the club can ill-afford, with fixtures backing up like a traffic jam in a cathedral city without a bypass.

Frustratingly, if you project second-half outcomes across whole games by giving three points, a point and no points to second halves that the Bulls have ‘won’, ‘drawn’ or ‘lost’ respectively, the club would currently sit in eighth position, a solitary point behind Darlington in the play-off places, with a whopping three games in hand over the Quakers. It’s an astonishing phenomenon, this aversion to the opening 45 minutes that HFC has.

It was an all-too-familiar scenario against Fylde last week, going into half-time 2-0 down, but again the character, belief and energy shown in rallying for a draw was encouraging ahead of the mountain of fixtures coming up over the next couple of months.

Talking of traffic jams, if you get stuck in traffic on the way across country to Norfolk and get there for half-time, given the above stat that’s probably a perfect outcome.

Can the Bulls actually score early here, keep the ball out at the other end for the whole of the first half, and then not forget to continue to be very good in the second half? Surely it’s got to happen soon?

Kings Lynn looked like title contenders when they cantered to an utterly facile 2-0 win at Edgar Street in August in front of a big crowd that collectively became very concerned about the season to come over the course of 90 minutes. That has since been shown to be a result that had more to do with Hereford’s false start than the Linnets’ title credentials. They now sit in 17th position, seven points ahead of Hereford having played four games more, and are very much out of form, with no win in six. They’re ripe for ripping to pieces from the first minute.

Gold Omotoyo and Adam Marriott should be a 30-goal-a-season strike force at this level, but Omotayo has barely featured, and a now ageing Marriott hasn’t come close to showing the form that brought him 60 goals in 80 games during his last spell with the club, which ended four years ago.

Their best player Michael Gyasi went out on loan to Kidderminster in autumn, which I assume was to do with money, in that they can’t afford the contract the player is on having recently been taken over by a Singaporean ‘consortium’. To complicate that matter further in a sad way, Gyasi has since been reported as having career-threatening health issues. His absence has put a dent in their progress.

Saturday’s visitors continue to hint (but currently it’s only a hint) that they may just be in a false position in the league. A few new faces to complement recent arrivals Keziah Martin and Justin Donawa have been suggested as being imminent by Paul Caddis. Negotiatons are reportedly ongoing to extend Jaiden White’s loan spell at Edgar Street, and any extension now would presumably be for the rest of the season. He was a hugely positive presence last spring in terms of making things happen, scoring goals, and generally being a player big, lumbering NLN defenders don’t like. If an extension can be agreed and he’s wide on one side of the pitch and Donawa, with his pedigree at this level, is wide on the other, defences can and will be opened up, resulting in goals and wins, although it would be good if one of the reportedly imminent new arrivals is a striker to support Willo in finishing off the gilt-edged chances those wide men can hopefully create.

Talking of someone who can support Willo, Harley Hamilton returns for this one having been cup-tied last weekend, and the ex-Blues youngster could play a hugely influential role in seeing the Bulls to safety and then who knows where: a late charge into the top half of the table? A hugely unlikely gatecrashing of the final play-off position on the last day of the season?

At the other end of the pitch, Keenan Quansah seems to be growing into his season agreeably, and it would be good to see him stick around for 2026/27.

And in between Hamilton and Quansah, Lawson Dath has been a rare source of hope in some of the bleaker moments this season, and a player who seems to actively enjoy playing for the club, which is arguably half the battle in bringing out the best in someone. Attempted bicycle kicks suggest that he may be back to full fitness, to accompany an admirable desire to always leave everything on the pitch, in an agreeably Snapperesque fashion. To attempt to hit Waitrose with his penalty last weekend merely highlighted his desire to bow out of the Trophy to concentrate on the league and a push up the table. Either that or a hatred of overpriced avocados pitched at smug middle-class people who wouldn’t be seen dead in Aldi.

If the Bulls approach the second half of the season in the same way that they approach the second half of individual matches, we can expect some fireworks. It would be nice if the blue (why is it always blue?) touchpaper could be lit with a win here to lift them out of the relegation places. As daft as it seems, if there’s any hope for excitement at the right end of the table by the end of the season this is a must-win, as a result of so many matches being surrendered so early in the first half of matches since August.

There is still some hope that the club can rise to a league position that’s at least respectable, as a competitive squad is gradually being pieced together, albeit somewhat belatedly, but that will rely on winning both the first and second halves of matches, starting now.

COYW