Curley Strike secures points for Hawks

An Injury hit Harlow side earned 3 points on a rain sodden pitch on Wednesday night, both team took some time to get into their stride before Romford's Ryan Imbert used his strength and speed to beat two defenders before dragging his shot wide after ten minutes. Harlow came straight back at the Boro with James Smith slicing a shot high and wide after a good run a three minutes later. Romforde then carved out a couple of opportunities first David Ottley sent in a ball from the right wing that managed to elude everyone in the penalty area and then Nick Reynolds had a shot fantastically blocked by Hawks defender Darren Blewitt.
On twenty minutes, a mistake by Donny Barnard allowed Abs Seymour to send in a cross from the left hand side that Nick Reynolds flicked with the outside of his boot inches over the bar. Romford's George Woodward was booked on twenty-seven minutes and this turned out to be the first of Nine cards handed out by the whistle happy referee who didn't take the conditions into consideration and ruined any chance of a free flowing game. Harlow came close to opening the scoring with both Alex Read and Stanley Muguo seeing chances saved by Romford goalkeeper Aaron Omand.
Romford's Jack Barry should have scored on thirty-nine minutes when heading wide from a yard out after the ball found him alone at the far post after Paul Clayton had flicked on a Daniel Jones corner.

Hawks manager Danny Chapman made a double substitution at half time bringing on Darren Williams for Donny Barnard and Scott Curley for Leon Antoine and on Forty Nine minutes Curley broke the deadlock firing home from the edge of the area after Romford failed to clear a corner. It was a sublime finish from the midfielder bending the ball round defenders and goalkeeper into the right hand side of the goal. Straight from the restart Romford's Imbert burst into the penalty area and hit a powerful drive inches wide of the far post and three minutes later Reynolds toe-poke towards goal was cleared off the line by Blewitt even though the defender knew nothing about it with the ball squirming just past the post and out for a corner. On fifty-seven minutes Curly was given a straight red for an alleged stamp on Romford's Joe Oates who was sitting on the ball after a stumble but if anything this stopped Romford's momentum as Harlow used up the clock well and had more men behind the ball that Romford found difficult to break down and were reduced mainly to long shots. Seymour and Woodward came the closest to equalising but Harlow easily saw out the seven minutes of injury time to give themselves a valuable three points in their push for the playoffs.