Recap: Harriers 1-0 Iron

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MAZ Kouhyar’s second half goal helped Harriers pick up a deserved and important 1-0 victory over National League North leaders Scunthorpe on Tuesday.

Kouhyar’s tenth goal of the season was enough to edge a tense affair under the Aggborough Stadium lights but, in truth, the win was secured as much by this effort as it was by the sheer determinedness of the Reds not to surrender their clean sheet.

Clear-cut chances on the night were at a high premium indeed, but Harriers did have one on five minutes. Kouhyar did superbly to dance past Michael Clunan’s outstretched leg and deliver an inviting cross where Amari Morgan-Smith met it with a header, the effort glancing wide from just a few yards.

Scunthorpe also spurned an early chance of their own, albeit perhaps not as clear cut, when Carlton Ubaezuonu stabbed wide from the edge of the area after getting forward with pace.

Morgan-Smith headed over the target on 29 minutes before Reece Devine curled wide, before Mark Beck had a sensational double chance to nod Scunthorpe in front on 35. Meeting two deliveries into the area, he was denied by phenomenally-timed headers off the line each time as Zak Brown and Morgan-Smith got back to do the honours within the space of ten seconds or so.

The deadlock was broken just five minutes into the second half. Kouhyar was set free out wide and, expecting a deadly delivery, Scunthorpe players readied themselves to defend it. They weren’t ready for a delivery that bamboozled them and goalkeeper Ross Fitzsimons, who watched it go over his head before clattering the angle of his bar and post, the ball hitting the opposite inside of the net. It was in by a matter of inches, but that didn’t matter at in the slightest as the Reds players celebrated.

Yet within minutes the Iron were almost level. After a ball was headed across the area, Ubaezuonu timed his jump well to meet it and sent the ball goalwards, Christian Dibble reacting well to turn it aside with an important save.

With 76 on the clock Joe Rowley met the ball at the back post after a ball across the six-yard area but was denied at the last second by a defensive block from Paul Downing.

That was the last time either side really got close to finding the net once more and, barring a scuffle on the touchline that saw both managers red carded, Harriers saw the win out with relative assurance and resolve.

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