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In a division where the dark arts of the beautiful game are rife, the Brakes tend to take it to another level, with a murky underbelly pregnant with every trick in the book. As long as they’re drawing or, shudder, winning, they’ll waste as much time as possible and fall over a lot. An early Bulls goal to force them to do something constructive rather than spoiling the game is therefore essential. Whatever the score, they will niggle and shove and tug when the referee isn’t looking.
Other than that, they’re always a joy to watch. Oh how we chuckled and muttered “Oh you crazy fun-loving guys!” when they temporarily blinded Luke Haines with a gratuitous act of violence last season.
Thanks to a strong start to the season, Tuesday’s visitors sit in seventh place currently. They’ve specialised in 1-0 home wins, but lost by the same score at home to lower-graded Nuneaton in the Cup. They score very few but concede hardly any. It would be ironic indeed if Ty Barnett could end his goal drought against their rock-solid defence.
Ex-Bull Simeone Maye should start for Leamington, as should striker Dan Turner, who has scored six of their nine goals this season.
They lost 1-0 away at Southport in the yukky-club derby on Saturday, and this sentence alone just drips seediness, so I’ll leave it there.
As for Hereford, some of the players deemed at least good enough in Josh Gowling’s summer shopping spree are now being offloaded to lower-graded clubs, as was the case at this stage last season. The nutty goalkeeping situation is of course nobody’s fault, but fundamentally chopping and changing the squad in September isn’t something usually associated with success. The latest centre half, Jordan Thompson, looked capable enough against limited opposition on Saturday, but coming from Gloucester doesn’t really fit with the quoted idea of waiting until the last minute, or in this case way beyond the last minute, for players coming from much higher up the pyramid desperate for a club, unless Gloucester are deemed to be much higher up the pyramid. Admittedly they’re 15th in the NLN, which is a place above Hereford.
With Thompson and Haines having to start to build an understanding in central defence on the hoof when rival clubs will have such partnerships in place that have been established for years, there does seem for the second season running to be an experimental approach to the start of the season that’s traditionally done in pre-season.
On the plus side, Jethro Hanson is asserting himself more and more as the quietly effective midfielder, to such an extent that he makes Ryan Lloyd, who used to be the quietly effective midfielder, seem quite noisy. Thierry Latty-Fairweather continues to look like a starting place should be found for him if he hasn’t cemented one already, even when Jack Evans is back from injury. Finally, Jack Holmes had something of a dream debut on Saturday, with a goal, an assist, and a man of the match award that I’d have personally given to Jethro Hanson for shoring things up when it looked a bit dicey. Well done to Josh Gowling for bringing the youngster in from Halesowen, and it’ll be interesting to see how he copes with the more robust challenge awaiting him on Tuesday, as well as in matches against clubs a good deal better than Blyth and Leamington.
Spartans on Saturday were very poor, but at least they tried to play football. Leamington will have no such ambition. This will be a much more challenging assignment, and there will be no scope for the sort of flat 20 minutes the Bulls staggered through in the second half at the weekend. A no-nonsense ref would be useful here, as would a self-disciplined approach from the hosts so that they don’t get tempted down to Leamington’s level.
But then it’s only Leamington. If the Bulls are going to be play-off candidates this season there’s a massive leap needed from that Blyth performance to beating Leamington to then stepping it up considerably to be competitive with the top six. If that sounds overly critical after two wins on the bounce, there was a very real possibility that Blyth could have got back into it on Saturday during that flat period in the second half, and that’s the sort of switch-off that results in mid-table nothingness at the end of the season.
A fit Aaron Amadi-Holloway could be the piece needed to complete the jigsaw. Without that, goals will continue to prove elusive against proper opposition on all available evidence so far.
Hereford are, as mentioned, still a lowly 16th in the table, but are just two points behind Chorley in eighth, so a win here could well propel them up to the heady heights of the top half, before another break for the FA Cup.
It would be good to win this for several reasons, not least because it’s Leamington, and if Luke Haines doesn’t pick up a yellow card I’ll eat my hat. Hopefully by then the Brakes will be down to eight men.
COYW