Harriers' hopes of pulling themselves out of the relegation zone were dealt a severe blow when they were defeated by one of their rivals at the foot of the table, and again it was a soft goal that was their downfall.

As promised, Stuart Watkiss made changes to the side; there were recalls to the side for Lee Jenkins and Tom Bennett after suspension and Johnny Mullins after illness and Simon Russell was recalled after being left out last week.  Stepping down were Abdou Sall, Ian Foster, Dean Keates and Bertrand Cozic; all but the injured Keates were on the bench.  Wayne Hatswell was moved out of the defence and given the defensive midfield role that Gary Birch had carried out at Scunthorpe with Birch moving forward as part of a three man attack.

Both sides were poor, and evenly matched, so there was little to choose between them in the opening stages.  Harriers had the first good chance after about a quarter of an hour; Billy Jones' corner from the left found an unmarked Birch in the middle of the penalty area but he didn't get over the ball and headed over the bar.  Shortly afterwards John Danby was Harriers' saviour; City were awarded a free kick 30 yards out in the inside left channel, Sean Hessey took it, curling it over the wall, but Danby managed to tip it over the bar for a corner.  From the resultant corner Phil Bolland headed wide at the far post.  Before the half was over birch went close again; a deep cross from the left by McGrath found him at the far post but he headed against the bar under pressure from Richard Hope with Wayne Brown the keeper beaten.

After the break Harriers came out more fired up in the early stages.  Blair Sturrock came on in place of the injured Birch and looked lively as he tried to impress the manager enough for a recall to the starting line-up.  It was all Harriers in the opening minutes of the second half; Jones went close with a 25-yard free kick that beat the wall and curled just wide of the far post and Sturrock had a shot pushed round the post for a corner by Brown after a good, strong, run by Chris Beardsley.

At the other end a surging run on the left by one-time Harriers target Michael Branch ended with a cross to the near post where Stuart Drummond met the ball with a diving header but he could not direct it and it went well wide.  Next, former Harrier Ben Davies tried his luck with a free kick that beat the wall but was straight at Danby, the keeper spilled it, however, but the rest of his defenders managed to scramble it away to safety.

Danby was at fault when the visitors took the lead 15 minutes from the end; his poor kick went straight to a City player who knocked it back into space on the left wing for Taiwo Atieno to run on to; he got to the byline and pulled it back across the face of goal where an unmarked Drummond was left with an easy close-range tap-in. The goal knocked the stuffing right out of Harriers and they rarely looked like getting back into the game.  Ian Foster had already come on in place of the ineffective Simon Russell and Bertrand Cozic came on in midfield but Harriers lacked a spark and still have no leader on the field when things are going against them.  John McGrath was unlucky with a shot goalbound shot that was blocked by Darren Edmondson but that was as good as it got.  Harriers were fortunate that their closes rivals in the relegation battle, Rushden, also lost meaning that despite wasting a golden opportunity to close the gap, the gap didn't get any worse.  With the number of games remaining coming down faster than the points tally is going up, Harriers are rapidly approaching the last-chance saloon and next week's local derby at Shrewsbury will not be any easier.