ADAM Murray admits ‘it’s all about winning’ for Kidderminster Harriers with a play-off spot all but secured.
Harriers enjoyed a perfect Easter Weekend after securing 2-1 victories against both Hereford and AFC Telford United respectively.
The results leave Harriers third in the National League North table while Kidderminster need just a single point from their remaining four matches to seal a top-seven finish.
And following an Easter Monday win against Telford, Harriers boss Murray is prioritising points over performance.
Murray said: “It’s about winning when you get to this time of the season.
“It’s a big three points. You want to keep performance levels high but what it looks like sometimes goes out the window.
“When pressure comes in, results go crazy. We’ve just got to make sure we learn from this [performance].
“We don’t want to become chaotic in the chaos. We’ve got to have that peace of mind and that calmness to take back control.
“There’s a lot, maybe not football wise but mentality wise and attitude wise, that we need to take out of the game.
“We have to win every game now to get to where we want to get to which comes with an enormous amount of tension and pressure.”
Telford broke the deadlock on 10 minutes when Remi Walker finished Khanya Leshabela’s cross from the right at the back post from close range.
However, Harriers equalised in style on 21 minutes as Charlie Cooper volleyed a dropping ball into the top-right corner from the edge of the penalty area.
And Kidderminster turned the game on its head on 39 minutes as Kieren Donnelly nipped in to beat goalkeeper Josh Gracey to Jordan Piggott’s tame backwards header and finish into an empty net.
Harriers received a boost eight minutes after the break when Jamie Meadows saw red for the hosts for a trip on George Walker just outside the penalty area with the latter through on goal.
And despite Amari Morgan-Smith seeing an injury-time penalty saved by Gracey, the visitors came away with all three points.
However, Murray felt his side produced markedly different displays either side of the break at New Bucks Head.
Murray added: “I’m not sure what bracket of performance I’m putting it in yet.
“We wanted to be really risky and played Kieren [Donnelly] in a little bit of a different position with George [Walker] to try and catch them with their pace.
“We wanted to keep those two up the pitch at all times and it worked perfectly in the first half, we created a number of chances.
“The second half was just weird. When you’re playing against 10-men it becomes different. They were just throwing the kitchen sink at it with nothing to lose.
“It caused us problems but we defended remarkably in the end and we had to.
“It was two different performances, in the first half I thought we were excellent and the second half we had to dig in.”
Kidderminster are next in action against King’s Lynn Town on Saturday, April 11 with kick-off at 3pm at Aggborough.
