Analysis: AFC Telford United 2 Redditch United 1

Matty Stenson further underlined his value to the Bucks by being their match-winner again in a highly-productive season that has yielded 21 goals.

A pair of Stenson headers secured victory over a Redditch side that showed a never-say-die attitude, even if they didn’t possess sufficient quality to make the Bucks sweat over the outcome.

On an afternoon when most of their promotion rivals collected victories, Kevin Wilkin’s team needed to keep pace with them, especially after three consecutive draws.

Although unbeaten in five matches, the Bucks have forgone missed additional points that would have given them breathing space in an almost claustrophobic promotion chase.

Teams are scrambling over one another like a basketful of puppies, but in Stenson, the Bucks have the division’s top dog for scoring goals. The two-goal lead he put his team into sparked a late Redditch rally but ensured that wasn’t enough to derail Wilkin’s side.

A Bucks team unchanged for a fifth consecutive match had to show considerable patience against a youthful Redditch team that has been shorn of many of the players that took them to last season’s play-offs.

There was little to separate the sides in the first half, and if anything, Redditch settled into their game more quickly, the Bucks unable to find a rhythm.

Redditch striking duo Ryan Boothe and Marvellous Okenabirahanlen suggested they would provide Orrin Pendley and Bucks skipper Sam Whittall with a challenging afternoon. Both are big, bustling and robust, not big on subtlety but effective.

Overlapping left-back Jack Kelly was their primary provider, from both open play and set-pieces. His fine cross, directed over Brandon Hall’s crossbar by the head of former Buck George Burroughs, was the closest either side came to scoring in a low-key opening.

Boothe, driven wide to the right of the penalty area, sent a powerful shot wide to Hall’s left, and Ellis Myles had to be alert to nip in and nudge the ball back to Hall as Okenabirahanlen bore down on him.

Myles soon sparked the Bucks’ best moment, moving forward to cross and seizing the ball back when his first effort was blocked. He went past a defender to lift a dangerous ball to the far post, and a Redditch defender headed behind to concede a corner.

Redditch had a half-hearted penalty appeal when Onabirekhanlen couldn’t make contact with a Kelly cross, and Nick Clayton-Phillips claimed he was pushed in the back by Pendley when trying to win a header. Referee Thomas Durno, who likely disappointed both sides at times, firmly waved away the protests. In the aftermath, Josh Esen, on loan from Wolves, fired in a raking low shot that a watchful Hall held with relative comfort.

Neither side could genuinely claim to be on top as the half-hour-mark approached; however, what had gone before became academic as Stenson broke the deadlock after 28 minutes. Myles was again involved, playing a give-and-go with Jordan Piggott to move beyond Kelly on the right. Stenson met his delivery no more than six yards from goal, the striker getting in front of Kyle Rowley and his header diverting the ball inside Ollie Taylor’s near post to the keeper’s left.

The goal didn’t fundamentally change the game’s pattern. It remained a tight contest, with Orrin Pendley heading a Jordan Cranston free-kick over the bar as the Bucks gained more momentum as halftime approached.

The narrow margin at half-time inevitably gave rise to the thought that the game’s next goal could be crucial.

The Bucks emerged from the interval looking keener to take control. They had big appeals for a penalty overlooked when a Redditch defender was alleged to have handled in trying to stop Jimmy Armson from bringing the ball under control. The play developed, and Armson flicked the ball over his head, looking to swivel and shoot before Burroughs intervened.

Redditch responded with a Kelly free-kick, awarded for a foul on Boothe, some 30 yards from goal. His accuracy from set-pieces was a genuine threat, and Hall had to move swiftly to his right to palm his shot wide.

The Bucks were soon to stretch into a two-goal lead. In the 53rd minute, Stenson’s knockdown from a long diagonal ball from Pendley was collected by Armson, and his shot was heavily deflected, earning a corner. Cranston’s excellent deliveries have made the Bucks more of a set-piece threat in recent weeks; as the ball swung in invitingly, Stenson timed his run from the edge of the box to rise above everyone and power a header down towards Taylor’s bottom-left corner.

Redditch hadn’t done much to warrant being two goals adrift, but Stenson had been clinical, and they now faced an uphill battle. They responded by being less cautious and may have wished they’d done so earlier.

Kelly’s corner and free-kicks were menacing, and Hall palmed one away under huge pressure in his six-yard box. Rowley was soon left on the floor in momentary disbelief that he’d failed to make contact with a dangerous ball in from the left, but the visitors were beginning to believe.

Redditch manager Matt Clarke, a former Telford player, replaced Boothe and Onabirekhanlen with two more former Bucks, strikers Anthony Dwyer and Tyrell Hamilton. He also introduced Dylan Thomas for Clayton-Phillips, and the trio demonstrated that Redditch would not go gentle into that good night.

They created a different threat, Dwyer and Hamilton being more nimble and pacy. Thomas and Dwyer struck the bar within three seconds of one another as Kelly’s crossing accuracy wreaked havoc; Thomas struck a shot down into the turf and watched it bounce up to flick off the face of the metalwork, with Dwyer’s instinctive swing at the rebound hitting almost the same post. Another Dwyer effort was blocked as Hall held on to his clean sheet by the narrowest margin. Incredibly, from the resulting counter-attack, Max Brogan released Stenson, and his attempt to locate a sprinting Brogan at the far post also landed on top of the crossbar.

In the 70th minute, the visitors got the goal they would feel they deserved. Kelly claimed the goal with his right-wing corner kick, dipping and swinging towards the goal. Players from both teams strained to get on the end of it and prevented one another from making contact, but it mattered not as the ball curved in and found the far side of Hall’s net.

Redditch had all the encouragement they needed to mount a concerted push for a point, and the Bucks suffered a blow when Whittall, an often imperious header of the ball, limped out of the game with a suspected damaged hamstring. New signing Jahdahn Fridye-Harper took his place alongside Pendley for the final 15 minutes.

Referee Durno then added to the febrile atmosphere by issuing several short cautions, most of which were to Telford. Cranston and Brown were booked over the same incident and the response to it, while Brogan collected one, not for his foul but for speaking out of turn as Esen took issue with him.

Armson received a crude challenge from Morgan Owen, the Redditch man also booked, but the fear was that the Bucks were losing control. Wilkin replaced Brown with Lewis Trickett, and the Accrington loanee introduced himself to the SEAH Stadium crowd with a run and cross that Taylor whipped away from an onrushing Buck.

The final minutes became something of a siege. Hall saved from Dwyer at his near post when Rowley’s header from a Kelly free-kick put the ball into his path. That led to a corner, and more followed. The Bucks resisted, and from one of them, they almost sealed the game on the counter-attack. Brogan and Trickett hared from their half with Redditch overcommitted, and Brogan sought to use Trickett as the decoy before opting to shoot and sending his low shot wide of the far post as Taylor advanced.

The Redditch keeper was to advance much further forward in the eighth minute of time added on; supplementing his side from yet another pinpoint Kelly delivery, he leapt high over a crowd of players to head the game’s final chance over Hall’s crossbar.

The Bucks had been forced to dig in by a determined Redditch rally but had shown enough resolve to stand firm and claim the points Stenson’s clinical finishing had ultimately put them on course for.

AFC Telford United: Hall, Myles, Cranston, Hawkins, Pendley, Whittall (Fridye-Harper 72), Brogan, Armson, Stenson (Styche 90+3), Brown (Trickett 82), Piggott. Subs not used: Hilton, Morris.

Redditch United: Taylor, Kelly, Rowley, Burroughs, Shambrook  (Burton 60), Teixiera, Esen, Clayton-Phillips, Owen, Boothe (Dwyer 66), Onabirekhanlen (Hamilton 66). Subs not used: Dawkins, Thomas.

Referee: Thomas Durno.

Attendance: 1,229.