Sloppy Poppies slump to defeat at home to Burscough
Kettering Town 0 Burscough 1 Kettering Town host Burscough this Saturday at the A-Line Arena, looking to pick-up where they left off in the previous two home fixtures, albeit unlikely to be by the same 5-2 scoreline. Burscough are currently in 8th place in the BSN table and challenging for a promotion play-off spot. Early pressure coming from Kettering as you'd probably expect being the home side with both Westcarr and Beardsley coming close to opening the scoring, but it's not all one-way traffic with 15 minutes gone so far. Poppies go off the boil after the opening period and Burscough start to come more into the match, Harper called into action, saving from a Linnets' corner midway through the first-half. The writing was on the wall for Kettering as they sat back and allowed their visitors to gain more possession and they were inevitably punished for their sloppiness on 33 minutes when the Linnets top scorer Ciaran Kilheeny slotted home to make it 1-0 to Burscough. Despite taking the lead the visitors getting edgy as first Booth, then Flynn go into the referee's notebook. Kettering splutter back into life as half-time approaches but they could be regretting the costly lapse at the end of the match unless they can show much-improved display for the second period. With five minutes to the break the Poppies lay siege to the visitor's goal in an attempt to pull back on level terms before they troop off to the dressing room, but the determined Linnets defence will take a greater creative effort to breakdown than Kettering have produced so far this afternoon. Half-time: Kettering 0 Burscough 1 As the second-half gets underway, the big question is whether the players can shake off whatever malady is still hanging around from last week and get back some of the previous form that saw them storm clear at the top of the table. Kettering begin to pile on the pressure but the finishing touch is still conspicuous by it's absence ten minutes into the second period. Kemp comes on to replace Luke Graham at the back. Midway through the second-half and despite upping the tempo compared to the first 45 minutes, Kettering are still unable to provide the elusive touch that would possibly salvage something out of this so far lacklustre display. Beardsley is denied by Linnets keeper McMillan as Andy Hall comes on for Craig Westcarr to try and shake things up with 15 minutes left. Mills and Smart join the others in the referee's notebook as Mark Cooper brings on Mark Rawle to replace Chris Beardsley in perhaps a last-ditch effort to salvage something against a determined Burscough defence. Chances going begging as the mystery of what is affecting a once potent attack continues to keep Kettering from getting on the scoresheet. Things go from bad to worse for Kettering as Mark Rawle lasts less than 10 minutes before he has to go off and with ten men on the field the home side don't seem to be able to avoid defeat at this point. A mad scramble in the visitor's goalmouth but Kettering just cannot get the ball into the net and with seconds left on the clock it looks like Burscough will deservedly take away all three points. At the final whistle the news filters through that the lead at the top is reduced to just 3pts as AFC Telford Utd take advantage of what appears to be a spluttering period in Kettering's title challenge. An away trip to struggling Vauxhall Motors next Saturday will give Kettering another opportunity to get back on track but judging by today's performance Mark Cooper has some work to do to restore the confidence. All seven teams directly behind Kettering record wins and there's plenty of matches left before the season comes to a close. Att: 1,339 Kettering: Harper, Eaden, Graham, Dempster, Branston, Solkhon, Mills, Bridges, Beardsley, Westcarr, Marna. Subs: Hall, Bussey, Brady, Kemp, Rawle. Burscough: McMillan, B.Moogan, Flynn, Fitzhenry, Clancy, Parry, Booth, A.Moogan, Kilheeny, Mguinn, Smart. Subs: Price, Davis, Tomlinson, Dunn, Noone. February 23, 2008
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