SHOTS LACK PUNCH AS SHAYMEN TURN SCREW

DOWN to their bare bones and with manager Billy Heath under increasing pressure, FC Halifax Town turned the form book on its head with a stunning smash-and-grab victory at the EBB Stadium.

Shorn of virtually a whole team through injury and suspension, Scott McManus – one player making a welcome return to fitness for The Shaymen – capitalised upon Lewis Ward’s horrendous and totally uncharacteristic error to poach the only goal of the game and earn the visitors a first victory in 12 league matches.

“We’ve got a little bit of luck today,” admitted a relieved Heath. “But it’s been a long time coming, and I think that was as good an away performance as you’ll see anywhere.

“We’ve got more missing than we have got playing at the minute, and we’ve barely trained all week,” he conceded, “but that was a real squad perform- ance. We spoke about having to keep our discipline without the ball, and that was key today.

“We knew when we got the ball we may be limited at times, but the main thing was everybody doing their job, keeping our shape and being disciplined.”

It was an approach that proved more than enough to beat a Shots side who had blown Wrexham away with a devastating display in their last home game, but here were a disjointed shadow of their recently flamboyant selves. Particularly surprisingly, the league’s erstwhile top-scorers failed to muster a single shot on target in a deeply flawed first-half. “It wasn’t good enough. We were very disappointing throughout,” admitted Shots boss Gary Waddock, who lost striker Matt McClure to a calf injury in the warm-up on a day when little went right for the team on the crest of a five-game unbeaten run. “Credit to Halifax, they stuck to their gameplan, but our performance was nowhere near the standard that we are looking for.” Bobby-Joe Taylor’s early shot, curled wide of the far-post, gave false hope of a dominant home display, and Ward had to stand strong to block Danny Clarke’s 10th-minute shot when through on goal. Aldershot Town only briefly rediscovered their pace and verve in attack, and instead struggled for cohesion and tempo against a Halifax side who were resolute in defence and comfortably won the crucial midfield battle. Then, on 39 minutes, Ward mis-controlled Connor Oliver’s angled pass towards the edge of the box, allowing McManus to virtually walk the ball into the net. Jim Kellermann finally brought a save from Sam Johnson on 55 minutes, with a driving run and tightly-angled flick which rebounded off the keeper’s chest, but the Shots could have laboured for most of the night and still not equalised.