Marine 3 Hednesford Town 1 - Report
Boss Rob Smith pulled no punches after Hednesford Town emerged from a luckless afternoon with a 3-1 defeat at Marine.
The match kicked off 15 minutes late after the Pitmen got held up on the M6 with Craig Carney afforded too much space to cut in from the left and finish unerringly with quarter of an hour played.
Hednesford winger Matt Dodd was withdrawn after half an hour due to suspected medial ligament damage but Reece King headed home from a corner to restore parity before the break.
A long punted ball forward caught out the away backline with Chris Doyle bustling past his man to unleash a goal-bound shot just before the hour mark.
Substitute James Murray then rounded off the scoring on the break with three minutes to go, compounding a pretty miserable day.
“All in all it was a pretty horrendous day and in fairness, we played like we had just got off the coach,” said Smith.
“The first-half performance was lethargic and it cost us. We still managed to go in level at 1-1 but we got no better after the interval. It was a bad day all round.
“The delay was not ideal but we cannot make excuses. We were very poor in both boxes, we had chances which we didn’t take and at the other end we were weak.
“It was a very poor performance. We thought we had put a few things right at half-time but despite all of our possession, we didn’t improve enough. I could have no complaints.”
On Dodd’s injury, Smith added: “I would say it looks like months (out) rather than weeks.”
Team
Pitmen: Bursik, Curley, Fox (Edge, 74), Fitzpatrick, Galinski, Mendez-Jones, Dodd (Howard, 31), King, Cockerline, Davies, Archer (Grimshaw, 70). Unused subs: Hollis, Veiga (g/k).
