HARRIERS 0, Halifax 1

AS the seconds ticked away Mark Jackson attempted to pass a 10-yard free kick to Wayne Graves which instead of finding its target rolled straight out of play for a throw, writes Mat Kendrick.

And in that one seemingly insignificant moment lay the sad and sorry story of Kidderminster's night.

If even your most consistent performers can't get the basics right you know you're in trouble - and Jackson was one of the better ones!

You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Harriers put together a move of more than three passes, with one such rare occasion eliciting an ironic cheer from the terraces.

For some reason the Aggborough dressing room has been gripped by a collective crisis of confidence which has affected nearly all of Stuart Watkiss's players.

After a summer of turmoil down Hoo Road, the doom and gloom merchants must put Harriers' recent rut into perspective - at least Harriers have a squad of players, even if they are malfunctioning massively at the moment.

At one stage the very future of Kidderminster Harriers FC was in jeopardy, remember.

But at least the last two performances have delivered an almighty reality check to the fantasists at the football club who thought Kidderminster would walk non-League football's premier division. If these players were world-beaters Watkiss would not have been able to sign most of them on minimal wages just weeks before the season.

Harriers do not have a divine right to return to the Football League. A play-off place or better will not be handed to them on a plate. And, given what's gone on, mid-table mediocrity and the chance to consolidate would be a reasonable return from their first season back in the Conference.

Watkiss was conspicuous by his absence at the post-match press conference, leaving the assembled hacks waiting in vain while he gave his players a dressing room dressing down for almost an hour.

Even if the Harriers boss had have surfaced, he would have struggled to explain away this latest display. Because if he understood why his team were performing so pathetically surely he'd have changed it after the first 15 minutes.

It was clear by then that Harriers lacked the bottle to get the ball down and play it and it was even more clear that their attempts at beating the physical Shaymen at their own long-ball game were ill-advised.

Harriers' own incompetence, the whistle-happy referee's constant interruptions and Halifax's resolute defending - Adam Quinn in particular was a colossus - prevented the home team from finding any rhythm.

Consequently Kidderminster resorted to hitting it long and trying their luck from distance with Iyseden Christie, Lee Thompson and Taiwo Atieno all firing harmlessly off target from outside the box and the midfield completely anonymous.

Halifax were no great shakes but they implemented boss Chris Wilder's game-plan to the letter, grabbing a breakaway goal and defending it for dear life, not that Harriers ever looked like equalising.

For the fifth successive home match, the visitors took the lead, even if the strike was a little harsh on Harriers. There seemed to be an offside in the build-up to Lewis Killeen's 27th minute winner, while a cruel deflection off a defender from Ryan Sugden's shot looped the ball into the goalscorer's path.

Kidderminster have staged countless comebacks in front of their own fans so far this season, but with creaking player-coach Martin O'Connor again limping off at half-time, they lacked the nous and the know-how to repeat the feat.

Wayne Hatswell delivered a couple of telling crosses into the box, and with the linesman's flag already raised, substitute Michael Blackwood struck a post in the dying seconds, while at the other end John Danby saved with his legs from Sugden and John Grant fired into the side-netting.