Saturday, November 22, 2003

JAN Molby admitted that Kidderminster Harriers face a long, hard season unless they improve their home record which suffered another dent on Saturday when they lost 2-1 against Torquay United.

It was the first time Harriers have lost a Nationwide League match against the Gulls who secured victory at the seventh attempt thanks to two goals from Kevin Wills.

The defeat left Molby's men three points away from the Division Three relegation zone and still searching for their first league win at Aggborough since beating basement club Carlisle United 2-1 on October 4.

The Harriers director of football said: "We've got 27 games to go and we know what our targets are regardless of what people think.

"That's to try and finish third from bottom or higher and it's going to be a long, hard season if you can't pick up wins at home because they're normally your bread and butter.

"Even teams that get relegated normally produce eight, nine, ten home wins and we are finding it extremely difficult at the moment."

Molby felt Harriers lacked a player with leadership qualities and revealed he has a midfield player in mind whom he feels has the right credentials to cure the problem.

He said: "There is only so much you can do from the bench. Once they are out there somebody has to do those jobs for you.

"We are looking for somebody out there who is going to lift the rest of them and lead from the front.

"Not just somebody who shouts and bawls but somebody who actually does it and the players take the lead from him.

"We have found the person we want but it's not possible to bring him in at the moment."

Molby admitted that Harriers had been beaten by a better side, saying: "Right from the word go they were on top. I had hoped that after they'd scored and we had got ourselves back in the game so quickly that we'd have been capable of stepping it up, but it just wasn't there. We were never on top of our game and we never played well."

Wills gave Torquay a seventh minute lead with their first ever league goal at Aggborough in the seventh minute, but Harriers were back on terms five minutes later when leading scorer Danny Williams hit his fifth goal of the season.

He cracked the ball in from the edge of the area after the chance had been created by on-loan striker Andy White who went past two Torquay defenders before providing the vital pass.

The goal, however, failed to inspire Harriers to greater heights and Torquay were always a major threat.

They notched what proved to be the winner in the 58th minute when excellent work by the highly rated David Graham created the opportunity for Wills to bag his well taken brace.

Kidderminster's only real second half attempt at goal came in the 80th minute when defender Wayne Hatswell saw his powerful header expertly pushed over the bar by keeper Arjan van Heusden.