Shrewsbury Town 4(3) v (2)2 Kidderminster Harriers

Two goals up away from home and cruising to what looked like being a crucial three points in their fight against relegation, Harriers' defence hit the self destruct button and by half-time the game was lost and eventually went down 4-2.

As has become the norm there were a number of changes to the team; surprisingly Billy Jones was dropped to the substitutes' bench with Wayne Hatswell moving to left back while new signing Mark Jackson came in for his debut in the centre of the defence.  Without the injured Dean Keates, Lee Jenkins and Gary Birch there were returns to the starting line-up for Bertrand Cozic, Ian Foster and Blair Sturrock.

In the early stages Harriers were lively and took the game to The Shrews; after just three minutes a long throw from Hatswell found John McGrath who saw his volley headed away for a corner by Stuart Whitehead.  At the other end a long ball through the inside-right channel caught Jackson out, the former Scunthorpe man looking like one who had only played four competitive games all season, and Luke Rodgers nipped in behind but fortunately for Harriers lobbed over the bar.  Harriers took the lead after twelve minutes, a Foster shot was blocked and when Sturrock's follow-up came back off the post Chris Beardsley was on hand to fire home his third goal of the season.

Johnny Mullins found McGrath with a long ball out of defence and he almost doubled the advantage with a shot from over 30 yards out that dropped just over the bar.  The second goal was not long in coming, however, and started from a failed Town attack.  Cozic carried the ball out of defence and picked out Foster on the right wing, he ran half the length of the field with it before passing to Sturrock in the penalty area who turned and lashed his shot beyond the reach of Scott Howie in the home goal.  There should have been a third goal, which would surely have sealed the result for Harriers, but Foster was unlucky to see his shot cleared off the line by Whitehead after McGrath and Beardsley had combined on the left wing to create the opening.

The Shrewsbury comeback began 13 minutes before the break with Jamie Tolley's left-wing corner; the well-delivered flag-kick found Darren Moss who had escaped his marker and powered in a header from close range at the near post.  Shortly afterwards the home team were level; another dangerous corner, this time taken by Neil Ashton on the right, was not cleared at the far post and when the ball fell to Moss who had again escaped his marker and he drilled a low shot into the back of the net.

At the death of the first half Shrewsbury had the ball in the back of the net again; yet another corner ended up in the Harriers goal but it didn't stand as former Harrier Kelvin Langmead was penalised for a foul on Simon Weaver.  In stoppage time, however, Town managed to score yet again and this time the goal stood; a free-kick deep on the right taken by Tolley was played back to him and his cross to the far side of the penalty area was headed past a stationary John Danby by Langmead.

The dangerous corners from Shrewsbury continued at the start of the second half but Harriers managed to survive three of them in the first five minutes.  After McGrath had curled a 25-yard free kick over the bar the game was ended as a contest by Shrewsbury's fourth goal.  Sam Aiston skipped past Mullins on the left wing and crossed low to the near post where Rodgers turned the ball past the slow to react Danby.

Harriers' capitulation was complete and, despite two good chances that fell to Sturrock who was thwarted by Howie on each occasion, there was no way they were ever going to get back into the game.  Manager Stuart Watkiss now has a massive task to lift his shell-shocked troops ahead of Tuesday's game with Bristol Rovers as they rapidly run out of "must-win" games.