Point made in Bromley battle
COUNTY earned a hard-fought, welldeserved draw at league leaders Bromley in an entertaining game at Hayes Lane.
After a lengthy, successful trip to Dover the Saturday prior, the long trek to South East London shortly followed last Tuesday evening - for what looked to be a tough task against high-flying Bromley.
And in Jim Gannon’s side’s first ever meeting with the Ravens, County continued their National League resurgence with a fourth unbeaten game in a row (prior to Saturday’s disappointing Edgeley Park defeat to Woking).
All the goals came in the first half as Elliot Osborne and Tom Walker cancelled out an early opener for the impressive hosts to turn the game on its head, before an unfortunate Sam Minihan own goal moments later rounded off the scoring - before a frantic second half.
County took to the field showing two changes from the starting line-up at even-more-faraway Dover Athletic three days earlier.
Paul Turnbull and Devante Rodney, having suffered respective foot and facial injuries which both required further treatment in the battling 1-0 win at The Crabble, were replaced by Jordan Keane and the first goalscorer Osborne.
The hosts set the pace for large parts of the evening, looking impressive on the front foot and carving out a number of opportunities against a resolute Hatters side - backed by a commendable 200 travelling fans.
For all of Bromley’s neat and tidy play on the evening, both of the home side’s goals came via Hatters mistakes - and the first soon arrived just after the quarter of an hour mark.
With County on a foray forward which had been quite rare at that point, defender Festus Arthur was dispossessed whole on the ball just past the halfway line.
The energetic Luke Coulson saw his shot saved by Hinchliffe, who compounded the errors by spilling the effort into the path of Man of the Match Reeco Hackett-Fairchild, who tapped home.
County may have been forgiven for folding at that point given two arduous journeys in the space of four days - but Gannon’s charges showed a resiliency which came to the fore repeatedly in last season’s exploits.
And within seven minutes of going behind, the Hatters were back on level terms, as Sam Minihan fed Osborne, who embarked on a mazy run before cutting in from the right and firing past home goalkeeper Ryan Huddart to equalise.
Seemingly from nowhere, County tails were up- and ten minutes ahead of the break, they went ahead.
Jordan Keane’s cross from the right was halfheartedly cleared by defender Sam Wood, and fell into the path of Tom Walker who converted at the far post.
But The Hatters’ lead was cancelled out in the blink of an eye, as the unfortunate Minihan title-winning deflected leading goalscorer Michael Cheek’s cross into his own goal past a helpless Hinchliffe.
With the game level at the interval, a frantic and end-to-end second half followed in which both sides struck the woodwork.
Cheek saw a header caught by Hinchliffe as the hosts applied some further early second-half pressure.
And ten minutes into the restart, they hit the woodwork for a second time when Hackett-Fairchild’s free-kick from the edge of the area bounced off the crossbar and over.
Adam Thomas did the same three minutes after the hour-mark, courtesy of a shot from just inside the home area that was deflected on to the bar.
And while Bromley continued to push forward, a County break came close to separating the two sides when Nyal bell just missed out on getting a final touch to fellow lively substitute Ben Jackson’s low cross from the left.
With five minutes left on the clock, HackettFairchild’s free-kick from 25 yards out narrowly cleared County’s bar.
And during added time, the striker threatened to end the contest in front of goal as he had begun it – only to fire wide of the right post with Hinchliffe beaten, and County earned their deserved point with a proud showing on the road.