Mellon reacts to Oldham Athletic’s defeat to Kidderminster
Micky Mellon said he was “gutted” to suffer defeat to relegation threatened Kidderminster in what was Frank Rothwell’s Boundary Park homecoming.
Latics’ inspirational chairman was welcomed back from completing the World’s Toughest Row by a sell-out crowd.
But Oldham failed to match the occasion with a fitting performance, and were roundly booed by a section of the 11,881 crowd after falling to a 2-1 home defeat.
Latics trailed at the break after defender Alex Penny breezed through the backline to score midway through the first half.
Nathan Sheron’s hit a well struck equaliser from Mike Fondop’s cut back just four minutes into the second half.
But Latics succumbed to a set piece, with Reiss McNally capitalising on a free header from a corner just before the hour. And despite the introductions of Devarn Green and Andrew Dallas to liven up the attack they struggled to find a way back, with defender Charlie Raglan seeing a late header from substitute Dan Gardner’s free kick into the box go agonisingly over the bar.
“Gutted. We just didn’t compete, the type of game it was we didn’t meet the needs of the game,” said Mellon, whose side remain in the play-off positions on goal difference
“It was a battle and we didn’t in the first half certainly win enough first contacts, pick up enough knockdowns or have the character to get forward and play. We were just second best for too much of that first half.
“It took us to get to the second half to understand what the game was asking us. We started to compete a lot better but it was still a scrappy game, I would have still wanted to get more control of the game but either it wasn’t allowing us to do that or we weren’t showing the qualities to be able to do that.
