No need to panic as Reds' revival runs out of gas Oakwell action: From left, Ferenczi celebrates his goal, Paul Heckingbottom clears the danger from Norwich’s Lee Croft and Kyel Reid flies in to win the ball for Barnsley « Previous « PreviousNext » Next » View GalleryBy Simon Meeks Barnsley Barmnsley 1 North 3 TWO steps forward; one back. Barnsley shifted into reverse here. Wins against Hull City and at Stoke City and then up against Norwich, a city where a tankful of Tesco's petrol stops your car, and Barnsley were gone in 40 minutes. It was 3-0 then and there looked no way back. Istvan Ferenczi scored his fifth in four matches, in time added on before the break for 3-1. And so it ended. Barnsley needed to be at it from the first second of the second half. An early goal on the re-start could have fuelled a comeback. Instead, they misfired against Norwich's brick-wall defending before the meaningful action petered out. Still, no whiff of panic about Oakwell. Why would there be? Everyone else on the relegation parking lot had the decency not to win either. Same old story. And this was same old, sad Barnsley in the first half at least. The back four stood off and Darren Huckerby, a player Barnsley boss Simon Davey rates "a world beater on his day", had a red-letter day field day and birthday, all rolled into one. His opening goal with seven minutes gone left keeper Nick Colgan without an earthly chance. Huckerby cropped up on the right, cut inside and, right-footed, found the top corner. Davey reckoned: "Huckerby came in and hit it with his weaker foot and its gone in the top corner. You can't legislate for that. "For the second it gets a bit of a ricochet and it falls to someone in an offside position but it's off one of our players so we didn't get the rub of the green. The luck has gone against us." Norwich had keeper Tony Warner making his debut. He's with them on loan from Fulham and he almost landed them in the cart with a kick which fell to Peter Rajczi. He had keeper to beat and target to hit. In the next second Norwich had a goalkick. Barnsley were totally pedestrian for Norwich's second goal. Mark Fotheringham somehow squeezed the ball through to Lee Croft in the box. He had stacks of time and put it in low. Grant McCann's free-kick from the brink of the box was gloved over by Warner before Norwich were home-free game- winners. Chris Martin is a kid they've brought through the academy. He's big and football brainy. In a penalty-box traffic jam he was cute enough to spot Huckerby in his own acre wide right. Huckerby's ball tracked Martin's run to far post perfectly. The header was down and in. Simple as that. Colgan was left reflecting on 45 minutes of football that had seen him beaten three times. Other than that he had been just an interested spectator. "Huckerby hit a hell of a strike for the first one. I think we were quite unfortunate for the second one, we gave Croft a free shot and then a good ball by Huckerby who dinked the ball in and Martin has got between Bobby (Hassell) and Lewin (Nyatanga)," Colgan said. Last Updated: 05 March 2007
