We were unlucky to lose by the only goal scored 5 minutes from time. Our back four saw 3 players make their debuts, Lewis Clement, Steve Morris and Rowan Gammond and they all played well alongside Lewis Holmes. They restricted the Celtic attack to only a few chances. Up front Morgan Freeman also made his full debut.

This was a game of few chances and it looked odds on to be a draw and go to penalties but Celtic put Tom Neville on and his running with the ball caused us some problems and it was following one of his runs that Steve Cann made a save but couldn’t prevent Zac Osbourne from forcing the ball over the line. We pushed forward and Alex Gammond just failed to get a touch on a cross that should have led to an equaliser while Sean Hanbury shot over the bar with minutes remaining. During the second half we gave as good as we got and it was probably our lack of experience in the box that denied us a win. This in general was an encouraging performance against one of the bigger sides in the league.

Steve Cann  2 Lewis Clement  3 Rowan Gammond  4 Steve Morris  5 Lewis Holmes  6 Alex Gammond  7 Liam McCreesh

8 Jack Hurley  9 Noah Daley 10 Sean Hanbury 11 Morgan Freeman

Subs  12 Craig Lewis  – 14 Adam Llewellyn -15 Neil Thomas – 16 Jay Thomas -17 Morgan Gardner

Celtic recorded a rare win at the Marston’s Stadium when they scored late on to progress into round 2 of the Cup. Both sides had a couple of chances which both failed to take. However with 5 minutes to go Celtic grabbed one of their chances to seal the result.

On Saturday in a re-arranged friendly we played Swansea League side Ynystawe. We ran out 6-3 winners with both sides scoring some excellent goals. Patrick Finneral should have scored after 8 minutes, he beat a couple of players as he got into the box but could only shoot straight at the keeper. We took the lead on 14 minutes when a quality move down the right saw Patrick Finneral cross for Noah Daley to score at the second attempt, the keeper having saved his initial effort. Rory McCreesh saved a certain goal diving to his right to save a goalbound effort. Then on 40 minutes we went two up, a great ball from Kieran Parsons found Patrick Finneral on the right, he brought the ball under control and fired a shot from the edge of the area past the keeper. 5 minutes later Patrick was fouled just outside the area and Adam Llewellyn scored with a left footed free kick. A great strike from all of 30 yards by Llewellyn made it 4-0 on 47 minutes. Patrick Finneral then added his second before a defensive error allowed a response from Ynystawe. Youngster Morgan Gardner turned a hit a left footer from the edge of the area to make it 6-1 with 20 minutes to go. Ynystawe replied from the kick off to make it 6-2 before Cai Owens netted deep into stoppage time tom make it 6-3

The Reserves plus a number of first year youth played at Croeserw in their first warm up match. Jamie Jones and Richard Cooling scored the goals in a 2-0 win and it was encouraging that half a dozen first year youth boys got a run out and acquitted themselves well.

Welsh Premier league bound Penybont won 4-0 last night. It was 1-0 at the interval with Luke Borrelli scoring. Curtis Hutson made it 2 early in the second half with further goals coming amongst the glut of substitutions. A good run out against last season’s undefeated champions.