Wayward finishing at Barnet bemuses Hatters

With the scores goalless, defender Joe Davis somehow contrived to fluff an open goal from just a couple of yards out after Paul Benson had headed Ronnie Henry’s cross back across goal.

Meanwhile, in the second half Luke Guttridge spurned a one-on-one against the keeper with Benson and Andre Gray either side as they were eventually forced to nervously see out victory.

Benson, who scored Town’s first, joked about the Davis miss, saying: “I just told him to defend and not bother coming up again.

“Leave it to us, I honestly don’t know what happened there, it could have been one of the worst misses I’ve ever seen.

“But fair play to Joe, if you’re young you could let that affect you and let your head drop, but he didn’t, he grew into it and I think he defended really, really well.

“First and foremost that’s his job to defend and keep clean sheets for us and I think he did that admirably.”

On the plethora of misses, Benson continued: “We made it hard for ourselves and we had a few opportunities to go 3-0 up and had we got that third goal it would have been game over.

“I think it would have been too much for them, they would have come out and given it a go, but it would have been too much for them to try and turn that around.

“So we had chances, on another day I think they might have gone in, just second half it was just one of those strange games in football where not too many things came off for us.

Skipper Henry was equally perplexed by the misses, as he said: “I haven’t seen it, but I don’t know how Joe’s missed the goal, I don’t know what he’s thinking about.

“These things happen, if he puts it away and Gutts puts his one-on-one away we would have been out of sight at 4-0, but things were different.

“They went for it in the end and showed a bit of character and we had to dig in.”

Benson was left with a simple finish for his ninth goal of the season after a great through-ball by Jonathan Smith and cross from Andre Gray.

He said: “It was a great ball from Smudge to Andre and he’s put a great ball in and it just needed a simple tap in from myself.

“It’s nice to get another goal and even more so nice to win the game.”

Henry was full of praise for the veteran striker who has helped to reinvigorate Town’s season.

He added: “Benno is an old lad but he’s still got it. He’s still got the brain, he’s still very clever and as you see (against Gateshead) his header was tremendous.

“He’s still got goals in him and he’s doing very well and compliments Andre very well because he pins up and Andre works off of him.

“Even though we played different formations, these (Barnet) are one of the games we have to win and we’ve put in a great performance.”

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