Kidderminster 0 Boston 0 - Report

Harriers, whose play-off hopes were badly damaged by a poor set of results in February, have now been unable to find the net in their last four league outings.

The deadlock denied manager Russ Penn’s under achieving side the opportunity to gain revenge for their 2-1-defeat at Boston’s Jakemans Community Stadium in early November.

Kidderminster made one change from the team which earned a well earned goalless draw at high-riding Darlington the previous Saturday.

With Nat Knight-Percival ruled out due to suspension there was a call up into the starting line-up for former Boston defender Alex Penny.

On the bench was Academy forward Kobe Hall who made his first team debut aged 16 years and 135 days in January against Leamington, making him the youngest Harriers player on record to make a first team appearance for the Aggborough outfit.

Harriers took five minutes before they produced their first threatening raid when a decent build up involving Joe Foulkes led to a shot from former Boston man Ashley Hemmings having a low shot safely gathered by goalkeeper Cameron Gregory.

The hosts, however, suffered an early injury blow when defender Krystian Pearce limped off in the 14th minute and was replaced by Reiss McNally.

They quickly settled back down and forced a corner, but captain Shane Byrne’s high kick was comfortably plucked out of the air by unchallenged Gregory.

The visitors soon responded with a promising attack which resulted in Kidderminster being heavily indebted to their goalkeeper Tom Palmer for pulling off an excellent save to keep out a header from Jake Wright.

Harriers tried hard to find a clear-cut way through the Pilgrims rear-guard and Byrne and Caleb Richards linked up well to provide a shooting opportunity for Hemmings who swept a left footer wide of the target in the closing stages of the first period.

The shot-shy hosts started the second half with a long, deep free kick by Hemmings which skimmed off a visiting defender for a corner which came to nothing.

At the other end alarm in the home defence led to a couple of near misses for the visitors, firstly when a kick out by Palmer deflected off Will Atkinson and went narrowly wide before Luke Shiels hooked the ball just over the bar following an awkward corner.

Soon after Joe Foulkes had a goalbound effort headed off the line by well positioned Ben Pollock while substitute Zak Brown was denied in the last minute by a flying save by Gregory.

Kidderminster: Palmer; Penny, Pearce (McNally, 14), Morrison; Foulkes, Richards; Byrne, Lissimore; Hemmings (Owen-Evans, 66), Berne (Brown, 66); Morgan-Smith. Subs not used: Freemantle, Hall.

Boston: Gregory; Nixon, Shiels, Pollock, Sephton; Platt, Atkinson (Mitford, 75), Mills; McLintock (Hasnio, 70), Chadwick; Wright (Goodson, 21). Subs not used: Ferguson, Munakandafa.

Referee: Liam Corbett.

Attendance: 2,230 (119 away fans)