September is not yet over but Harriers find themselves at the foot of the league table and out of two cup competitions after another backs-to-the-wall encounter at The Memorial Stadium.

Harriers fielded one of their youngest ever line-ups with an average age of 22 years 164 days, seven players in the starting line-up were aged 21 or under and none were in their thirties.  Some of the changes were enforced, Abdou Sall began his three-game ban following his sending off at Southend on Saturday; the likes of Richie Appleby, Micky Mellon, Iyseden Christie were all injured.

Despite the lack of senior players Harriers were in the game for long spells although in truth they didn't even try to test their hosts in the first half.  The plan seemed to be to soak up as much pressure as possible and hope for a set-piece or even to take the game all the way to penalties.

Had Rovers' finishing been better they could have taken hold of the game early on and Harriers would not have been able to conjure up any sort of response.  Some scrappy defending enabled one-time Harriers target Richard Walker to get in a shot that took a wicked deflection and John Danby did well to hold on to it low down to his left.  Christian Edwards headed over after being allowed to arrive late and unmarked at a corner which was delivered with pinpoint accuracy from the right by Paul Trollope and later in the half Danby had to be alert when a cross from the left by Robbie Ryan was caught by the breeze and he did well to back-pedal and tip it onto the bar.  Two minutes before the break Simon Brown took everybody by surprise by getting in Harriers' first shot of the game when he latched onto a hopeful clearance from the back and hit a dipping shot that Kevin Miller in the Pirates' goal did well to push away to safety.

After the break Harriers showed more application and endeavour and could have taken the lead in the first minute of the half when Kelvin Langmead, who ran tirelessly all night with little support, wriggled his way into the penalty area only to see his shot deflected away for a corner by a last-ditch intervention from the Rovers centre-half.  Moments later former Harrier Craig Hinton got free on the right and delivered a wicked cross to the far post where Lee Thorpe got up well but directed his header back across the face of goal and wide.

After Harriers' early promise in the second half Rovers began to build up some momentum of their own beginning with Thorpe's header; soon after Walker delivered a low cross from the left that Craig Disley steered just wide of the near post, had he used his other foot he would surely have beaten Danby and found the back of the net.

As the game wore on it became apparent that Bristol manager Ian Atkins was not going to let the game go to extra-time by sending on extra attackers Jamie Forrester and Junior Agogo whose arrival tipped the balance of the game finally in Rovers' favour.  Forrester should have won it when Hinton delivered another wicked cross but he couldn't jump high enough to control his header and succeeded only in heading it over the bar.  The winner finally came ten minutes from the end, a Harriers attack broke down when Steve Burton could clear the first defender with his cross and Rovers counterattacked quickly, a low ball in from the left by Forrester evaded Danby at the near post and was turned in at the far by Agogo.

Agogo could have doubled the lead later with another chance that Danby saved while at the other end on of Harriers' best chances of the night came to nothing, Dean Keates fed the ball back to the hard-working Jesper Christiansen whose cross from the left to the far post was just a fraction to far ahead of the stretching Langmead.  Three minutes from the end Harriers' last hope of getting back into the game disappeared when Youssou Diop mis-hit his shot and Miller was able to parry it and then recover safely as no Harriers player was following up.