Gethin Jones made a welcome return from injury as he successfully completed 45 minutes in his first appearance of the season, writes Pete Oliver.
Jones played the first half of the B Team’s Central League Cup defeat as planned as he builds towards full match fitness.
The defender has overcome knee and hamstring injuries which have delayed his start to the current campaign and underlined his well-being with a lively run-out against the young Terriers.
Jones slotted smoothly back into action but couldn’t prevent Huddersfield leading 2-0 at the break as Wanderers headed for a first loss in Group C of the competition.
The Whites hit back straight after half-time with an excellent finish from Ajay Weston halving the deficit.
Andy Taylor’s side looked as though they might build on Weston’s goal to mount a successful comeback but Town quickly punished two mistakes to regain control an hour into an entertaining encounter.
Ben Andreucci’s tidy finish with 13 minutes to go again briefly raised hopes of a fightback but Zak Abott’s second goal of the game wrapped up Huddersfield’s second straight win of the group stage to take them top of the table and into the qualification spot for the semi-finals.
“I think the scoreline is a probably a little bit generous to them, if I’m honest, and the message to the players after the game was that,” said B Team boss Taylor. “For large parts of the game we were well in it and created some decent opportunities.
“But they are a decent-level team and I said to the players that when you come up against high-level opponents, which they hopefully will in their careers, those small details matter and we got punished quite severely on the occasions we got the small details wrong and the little mistakes we made.
“We got back in the game from a great finish from Ajay and we looked like the team in the ascendency but, as I said, just small details we got wrong at the wrong times we got punished for. It just highlights how important those details are.
“It’s a strange one. We lost the game comfortably, but I do think performance-wise was much better than the reflection of the score. I’m delighted with the game in terms of the challenge, although obviously not with the result.”
It took 37 minutes for the opening goal to come as Jones and his defensive colleagues kept Town at arm’s length.
Wanderers’ captain Sonny Sharples-Ahmed had registered the first shot on target but it was the visitors who went in front when Abbott followed up a blocked shot to steer home the loose ball.
Town then doubled their lead a minute before half-time when Daniel Vost fired home from outside the penalty area after a free-kick had been stopped by the Wanderers’ wall.
The goals continued to flow as Weston then pounced on a poor clearance from goalkeeper Francis Hurl to send the ball straight back past the Terriers’ keeper two minutes after the re-start.
But rather than kick on and potentially get some reward, Taylor’s side shipped two goals in seven minutes to Jay Smith-Sway and Cameron Ashia after conceding possession at the back and a slip-up from goalkeeper Luke Hutchinson.
An excellent free-kick from Wanderers’ substitute James Westwood was then only inches away from pulling a goal back as the ball struck the outside of a post from 25 yards.
Wanderers’ positive second-half approach did pay off, though, when Trevon Bryan capped a lively cameo off the bench by slipping in Andreucci to calmly slot the ball past Hurl.
That could have led to some late drama but Wanderers’ couldn’t find another goal to crank up the pressure and Abbott’s late tap-in deservedly guaranteed maximum points for Town on an afternoon that will hopefully provide a useful stepping stone for fit-again vice-captain Jones.
“Because it was a decent level game it was better for him,” added Taylor. “It would have been no good for him to play a game at friendly pace. It was a really good, high-tempo game and great to see in back after a while.
“He came through unscathed, which is the main thing, and hopefully that puts him in good stead to hopefully start threatening the first-team squad sooner rather than later.”
Wanderers: Hutchinson; Jones (Westwood HT), Hogan (Rice 62), Inwood; Sharples; Matheson, Irwin, Leigh (Bryan 68), Weston (Smith 83); Isong (Lawrence 77), Andreucci.
Huddersfield: Hurl, Knowles, Solomon, Ayina, O’Reilly, Vost, Smith-Sway, Philpott, Abbott, Ashia, Falls. Substitutes used: Schofield, Walpole, Gregory, Bowker.
Referee: Mark Reeves
Images: Ben Livingstone
Watch a full-post match interview with Taylor and hear from Wanderers goalscorer Ben Andreucci later on Wanderers TV