Hatters affected
AFTER County’s FA Cup exploits came to an end with the disappointing 2-4 home defeat to Woking, The Hatters returned to league action with a frustrating 1-1 draw at National League North strugglers Nuneaton Town on Saturday.
With boss Jim Gannon admitting that his side were still suffering from “somewhat of a cup hangover” after their First Round defeat last weekend, Josh Amis’ first half opener was cancelled out just four minutes later by the hosts’ top goalscorer Aaron Williams as the Liberty Way clash ended in stalemate.
A reshuffle of the Hatters pack was the first order of the afternoon, with Courtney MeppenWalters making his first start in a month to replace right-sided Sam Minihan, who dropped to the bench.
Meppen-Walter dropped into a three-man defence alongside Michael Clarke and Chris Smalley, with captain Mark Ross and left-sided Max Cartwright taking their place as wing-backs – boss Gannon opting for a 3-5-2 formation at lowly Nuneaton, who’ve made a slow start to the season after just missing out on a play-off berth last campaign.
After suffering only their first back-to-back defeats of the season – the Woking loss was preceded by a 0-1 home reverse to play-off chasing Kidderminster – County started brightly at Nuneaton with departing midfielder Gary Stopforth, leaving Edgeley Park for Australia in January, forcing Christian Dibble to palm away his close-range header.
Ex-Hatters ‘keeper Dibble, who enjoyed a short loan spell with County in 2013/14, was the busier of the two goalkeepers in the first half, moving quickly across his line to tip Josh Amis’ smart header round the post.
Amis, dividing opinion amongst the Hatters fanbase for his short goalscoring record despite a string of impressive performances as a target man for the likes of Danny Lloyd and Jimmy Ball to link up with, finally grabbed his second goal of the campaign from the resulting corner – with the relief understandably etched across the Liverpudlian’s face.
The first goal of the game actually came from a failed corner routine – Ball’s driven pass along the surface from the set piece was easily cut out by Boro skipper Kelvin Langmead, only for youngster Amis to just as easily barge the experienced defender off the ball, before drilling a low strike past Dibble via a not-insignificant deflection.
With the home side yet to really test Ben Hinchliffe in the County goal, the visitors had got themselves in front just after the half hour mark – but threw that lead away barely five minutes later.
Danny Lloyd, so often the star man for Gannon’s men despite a rather quieter past few weeks by the 24 year-old’s own high standards, spurned a glorious opportunity to double that lead just a minute after Amis’ striker; with the former Fylde winger blasting wildly out of touch after skipping around Langmead and into the penalty area.
And Nuneaton duly punished The Hatters’ wastefulness just before the interval - although Gannon chose to focus on the “lacklustre defending” of his side rather than a lack of clinical finishing at the other end of the pitch.
After centre-back Smalley appeared to have cleared the immediate danger of a Iwan Cartwright corner, The Hatters quite visibly appeared to switch off – and Kristian Scott’s recycled cross towards the back post was nodded across goal for the equally unmarked Williams