Harborough 1 Telford 2: Bucks back to winning ways

football in the first half with a good measure of grit in the second half to achieve victory in South Leicestershire.

Goals from Remi Walker and Ricardo Dinanga ensured a maximum return, although the win owed just as much to a dogged defensive effort to resist a chiefly aerial assault from the hosts.

It wouldn’t be wholly accurate to call this an ‘ugly win’ for Kevin Wilkin’s team; however, there was little doubt that the Bucks manager was pleased to see his side show an appetite

for the battle this game turned into.

The midfield is crucial for getting the balance right, and the Bucks laid the foundation for success in the centre of the park. Walker, who caught the division unawares last season and developed into one of the Bucks’ ‘go-to’ players, has found the division a little more

challenging this season.

Teams have paid him more attention, but he brought quality and industry in equal measure and received valuable support from Byron Moore and Jordan Piggott.

Wilkin made one change to the side that drew 1-1 with Alvechurch in midweek. Rhys Hilton dropped to the substitutes’ bench, and defender Orrin Pendley returned from an injury layoff. Wilkin admitted that it was a desire to play three centre-halves that rubber-stamped

Pendley’s return to the side, playing alongside Alex Gudger and Sam Whittall, who retained the captaincy.

With Kyle Storer out of consideration for a starting berth through illness, Wilkin has handed Whittall the ‘C’ armband and been repaid for making that decision. Whittall has not been as imperious as last season in the opening months of the campaign but looks to be hitting

those levels again now. It may not solely be down to the additional responsibility, but whatever the reason, it is a welcome development.

Harborough, promoted to the division following last season, are a club looking to develop.

Although their league form hasn’t been great, they have been formidable in the Emirates FA Cup, reaching the first round for the first time in their history, and that has put a collective spring in their step. That factor alone made them challenging opponents; however, any

hopes they had of maintaining that feel-good factor faltered as the Bucks quickly got the measure of them.

Harborough, nicknamed the Bees, is a team of considerable height, with forward Ben Stephens probably their only player likely to be denied entry to the rides at any theme park.

Winning battles was going to be crucial, and the Bucks’ greater mobility and craft in midfield enabled them to gain control after a cautious opening fifteen minutes. Dinanga and the Bees’ Riley O’Sullivan exchanged blocked shots, and one of the Bees’ behemoths, defender

Paul Malone, sent a header wide from a set-piece as they tested each other out.

Wilkin’s deployment of a defensive unit of five players allowed wing-backs Ellis Myles and Nathan Fox to overlap, and the pair began to go up through the gears. Fox’s combination with Dinanga has been a strength for the Bucks all season, and it created an opportunity for

Dinanga to beat the defence, but he took the ball over the goal line before he struck his low cross-shot.

Harborough’s 3G playing surface is in good condition and was playing consistently, allowing the Bucks to move the ball with fluidity. Piggott and Moore, who should both reach the

milestone of one hundred appearances for the club at Redditch on Monday, were picking up a much higher percentage of loose balls in midfield than the Bees.

A foul on Dinanga, twenty-five yards from goal, gave Walker a free-kick opportunity, but although he got his effort up and down over the Bees’ defensive wall, it lacked enough real zip and was taken by home keeper Elliott Taylor to his right.

The game's flow was predominantly towards the Bees’ goal, but the Bucks couldn’t locate the honey. They had a penalty appeal waved away by referee Lewis Mountain when

Walker’s footwork in a crowded area opened up a chance for a colleague who was sent tumbling.

Dinanga tried to catch Taylor out, collecting a throw-in sent into the box and swivelling to fire an effort at the Bees no.1 from an acute angle. However, the Bees responded, and their threat from set-pieces was underlined when, from a corner won by O’Sullivan, Pendley had to clear in his six-yard box from a header that was on target.

After half an hour, the Bucks finally prised the door open following a foul on Dinanga; the willowy forward has stiffened his slight frame and now shows a greater inclination to stay on his feet when challenged, and he and the Bucks are seeing the benefits.

Walker accepted the invitation from a position similar to his earlier effort; however, this time, he went low and around the wall, beating the scrambling Taylor to his left and into the bottom corner.

It’s been a Bucks weakness that they haven’t sought to finish off wounded opponents, but although they didn’t add to Walker’s goal, it wasn’t for the want of trying. Fox’s overlap and cross found Dinanga with his back to goal, and although he couldn’t turn, Moore pivoted to lash a point-blank shot against Taylor but was in an offside position.

Moore then burst through a static Bees’ defensive line, playing too high, onto Dinanga’s through ball. He looked set to net the second but perhaps hesitated slightly, and the ball caught a recovering Bees defender on his heel to take him out of his shooting lane.

The Bees survived, regained some composure and kept the deficit to one goal at the interval. Given the chance to reset, they emerged as a different side in the second half, and the Bucks had to adapt to the challenge.

An early header from Ben Williams set the tone. The captain steered a header just wide of the far post from a set-piece, one that forward Tendai Daire might have turned in had his anticipation been better.

Fox, Dinanga and Walker created a shooting chance for the latter, but his effort was too close to Taylor. The Bees upped the intensity, forward Kai Tonge replacing the ineffective Daire, and he was to make an impact.

Dinanga remained a threat, but he was unfairly halted by Williams, who was booked. The Bucks followers' claims for a red card were optimistic, as Dinanga was too wide and too far from the goal for it to be classed as a scoring opportunity. The net result was a free-kick

from Walker that Taylor again got behind.

Tonge’s greater energy posed a different threat, and he went to ground in the box under a Bucks challenge, although he also appeared to stand on the ball. Referee Mountain assessed it as a molehill and denied the Bees a penalty.

The diminutive Stephens might have wished he was a little taller when teammate O’Sullivan showed his ability to strike balls powerfully, winding his colleague with a shot that might otherwise have troubled Hall.

The pressure was growing. After a foul on O'Sullivan, Gudger was booked for his protestations, but the next chance went to Dinanga. The Bees’ higher defensive line left them vulnerable to Dinanga’s pace, and he raced through with the ball, only to see his shot

strike the underside of the bar and bounce clear.

Wilkin felt afterwards that Dinanga would have scored had he not been pulled back, feeling it should have been a goal or a penalty.

The Bees made multiple substitutions to keep the momentum, and the Bucks were now being bombarded at every opportunity. It paid dividends in the seventy-fourth minute when the Bucks conceded a penalty as they sought to repel another set-piece. What referee Mountain saw was unclear, possibly a handball, and O’Sullivan smashed the ball past Hall from twelve yards, the keeper barely able to dive, such was its power.

Was it a crucial momentum shift? In short, no. The Bucks remembered what had brought them joy, and Myles and Fox began pushing forward onto the Bees again. Reece Styche replaced Matty Stenson for the Bucks, and he was promptly booked within a minute for

getting involved with O’Sullivan, arms raised. Styche is an agitator, a provocateur, but it wasn’t what his team needed in the situation.

They needed a goal, and in the eighty-fourth minute, they swatted the Bees from a corner kick. From a previous corner, Gudger had swivelled onto the ball, only for Taylor to palm his goal-bound shot away from his top-right corner. The second corner dipped in, and Dinanga arrived behind the big guns of Pendley and Gudger to glance a header past Taylor.

The final ten minutes, including five minutes of injury time, were frantic. Styche almost added a third goal with a rasping shot across the goal from a tight angle, but none of his colleagues could snaffle the rebound off Taylor.

Hall’s penalty area was the setting for a footballing blitz, the Bees sending the ball through the air, time and time again, looking to force an error. The closest they came was when a shot from substitute Liam Dolman was blocked and the ball spun clear; Fox couldn’t win the loose ball and it squirmed back into the six-yard box where it was smashed into the goal, but the two Bees who had swarmed around the ball were offside.

The Bucks resisted all further attempts, and joy and relief emerged in equal measure at full-ime. Wilkin’s side had to show different facets to their game to win this one, but they had risen to the task admirably.

Attendance: not given.

AFC Telford United: Hall, Myles (Jones 89), Fox, Moore, Pendley, Gudger, Walker, Whittall,

Stenson (Styche 80), Dinanga, Piggott.

Subs: (unused) Hilton, Armson.

Scorers: Walker (31), Dinanga (84).

Cautioned: Gudger, Whittall, Styche.

Harborough Town: Taylor, Cooper (Forbes 66), Sandhu (Tonge 52), Malone, Williams (c)

(Mulligan 77), Morris, Robinson, Walsh, Daire (Burgess 52), O’Sullivan, Stephens (Dolman

68).

Subs (unused): None.

Scorer: O’Sullivan (pen 74)

Cautioned: O’Sullivan, Williams.

Referee: Lewis Mountain.

Assistants: Scott Postin and Ryan Jennings.