Harrow slump to defeat at Hornchurch

Feb 25 2011 By Jon Batham

AFC Hornchurch 2-0 Harrow Borough

BOROUGH’s boss refused to hide behind the transfer of Troy Hewitt after Harrow fell to back-to-back league defeats on Tuesday night for the first time since October.

Borough, minus their young hotshot who was signing his contract with Championship leaders QPR, were not at the races as they slid to a 2-0 defeat to AFC Hornchurch on a wet night in deepest Essex in a game of few chances.

Howell labelled the performance ‘lacklustre’ and claimed no number of Troy Hewitts would have rescued anything from the game for the visitors.

He said: "People can say what they like about we lost because Troy has gone. Yes we are going to miss Troy, but the way we played last night we could have had Albert Adomah (now with Bristol City) as well and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

"The only player who would escape criticism is Wayne Walters, and where you can only exempt one player from blame you are struggling."

Borough were forced to play Danny Leech in midfield on his return from injury because David Ijaha was ill and with Ryan Watts (knee) still sidelined, Kenta Nakasima played his first game since breaking a collarbone at Folkestone last month.

They gifted their hosts the opening goal on the stroke of half-time when Tobi Jinadu headed over keeper Nick Jupp as he came to collect a through ball, leaving Lewis Smith to tap into an empty net.

Rocky Baptiste came closest to a leveller with a shot against the post, but Smith’s second 20 minutes from time leaves Borough six points adrift of the play-off scrap.