Ton Pentre 4 Afan Lido 5

From Tuesday’s win at Briton Ferry Cai Owens, Noah Daley and Jack Hurley were unavailable so James Parry, Patrick Finneral and Mark Jones returned and it was a triumphant return for Mark who bagged all 5 goals to reach 100 for the club.

We made a disastrous start to the game going behind in 25 seconds. Jack Fleming tried to shepherd the ball out for a goal kick but a Ton player won the ball laid it off and they scored with a right footed shot. Ton’s direct play was causing us problems and we went two down on 12 minutes when Mike Jones had a free header from a long throw and guided it into the net. Ton immediately conceded a needless penalty which Mark Jones netted with ease. Ton keeper Ryan Fleming then made an excellent save to deny Mark Jones an equaliser We were level however on 18 minutes, Ton were caught offside and Rory McCreesh quickly took the free kick playing the ball deep into the Ton half. A defender failed to control the ball and Mark Jones went through to knock it past the keeper. On 24 minutes we were ahead, and it was down to the keeper who had gathered the ball with Mark Jones in attendance, the keeper twisted his knee and fell to the ground releasing the ball. With no other player within 25 yards Mark calmly strolled to the centre of the goals before tapping the ball in. The unfortunate keeper had to be replaced but his replacement shone with some fine saves. We conceded a penalty on 42 minutes after Rory McCreesh raced out of his goal but was beaten to the ball, we cleared the initial attack but Rory again went walkabout. The ball was crossed right under the crossbar and Neil Thomas handled it and received a red card. Rory McCreesh atoned for his error by saving his fourth penalty on the bounce but within minutes Ton equalised when the defence didn’t react when the ball hit the crossbar and bounce down into the 6 yard area allowing Ton a lifeline just before the interval.

The question on everyone’s lips during the interval was could we play as badly in the second half, well initially we could as Ton hit the crossbar on 50 minutes and following a period of pressure scored again on 55. We did respond to this and Sacha Walters was fouled 25 yards out after a strong run. Unfortunately Chris Hartland’s free kick hit the wall and was cleared. We replaced Alex Gammond and Chris Hartland with Jack Underwood and Jamie Karnsang and within 6 minutes we were back on level terms. We played the ball forward to Mark Jones and despite having several players around him he managed to find some space, he rode a foul tackle with the referee playing a good advantage Mark sped into the area and hit a powerful shot giving the keeper no chance. He then made it 5-4 on 79 minutes, Jack Underwood and Jamie Karnsang combined well and the ball was played to Mark. His right footed shot lacked power but crept just inside the post with the keeper beaten. Jamie Karnsang again did well on 89 minutes playing a great pass to Mark Jones he beat a couple of defenders and hit a great shot which the keeper saved brilliantly diving to his left. There were 5 minutes of added on time, despite the odd scare we held on fairly comfortably.

 

Rory McCreesh  2 Kieran Parsons  3 Jack Fleming  4 Alex Gammond  5 James Parry  6 Mark Jones  7 Liam McCreesh 8 Patrick Finneral  9 Neil Thomas  10 Chris Hartland  11 Sacha Walters

Subs  14 Paul Evans – 15 Jamie Karnsang – 16 Jack Underwood