Author: Peter Reynolds

Final pre-season friendly

We beat Porthcawl 2-1 in the final pre-season friendly. Young Noah Daley netted in the first half but then saw a second half penalty saved. With 20 minutes to go Lewis Holmes scored an own goal but with 10 minutes to go he scored at the correct end!

Good pre-season workout

We defeated Baglan 3-0, Azeem Arshard scored after 10mins and there was no further scoring in the first half. Cai Owens was pushed up front in the second half and he and Owen Williams combined well with Owen scoring with a shot that went in off the post. Minutes later Cai made it 3-0 and only some excellent keeping by Dan James in the Baglan goal kept the score down

Win over Baglan

We led 1-0 at the interval thanks to a Jack Todd goal, Liam McCreesh netted in the second half to complete the scoring. This game saw a few more senior players make an appearance but once again there were some excellent performances by the youngsters on show.

Penydarren friendly

We again took a young side for this pre-season friendly. We took an early lead but ended the half 4-1 down, a spirited performance in the second half resulted in just a single goal minutes from time. Once again the youngsters gave a good account of themselves with lots of promise ahead of the season.

First pre-season game

A young side gave an excellent account of themselves despite the score. Adam Llewellyn scored our goal in the first period and had another effort cleared off the line. We were 3-1 down after the first 30 minutes but as the youngsters adjusted to the extra pace and physicality they settled down and showed a lot of promise.

Goytre 2 Afan Lido 1

We lost this game with about 70 seconds remaining when in a carbon copy of the first goal Lewis Sommers powered in a header to give Aaron Jones no chance. There were a lot of positives to take from the game, Aaron Jones made his league debut in goal and inspired confidence. Luke Evans also made his league debut in midfield and he took a while to get into the pace of the game but afterwards he had an outstanding debut, spraying some superb passes and breaking up the Goytre midfield possession. Owen Williams filled in at full back and had a good game in a strange position while Jack Fleming at left back making only his second league start had his best game for some time. The returning Josh Webber was a constant threat to the home defence and was unlucky not to score.

There were two big calls in the game and both went against us, Sacha Walters appeared to be on the end of an elbow just before half time but instead of the expected red card the offender received a yellow. Secondly a goalbound shot hit the arm of a Goytre defender in the area, the ball had travelled some distance and the arm was high but this time the ref waved play on. Sacha Walters scored our goal on 23 minutes when following a Lido free kick the ball was played in to Carlos Indjai but he got this feet in a tangle and the ball fell to Sacha who made no mistake from close range. Goytre’s equaliser on 35 minutes came from a long corner which found Lewis Sommers in space and he powered the header in. The second half was fairly even, we played some nice football on the ground while generally Goytre lumped the ball forward for Sommers. In the closing stages they put on a lot of pressure and each time we cleared the ball it found a Goytre player so the pressure continued. It looked as if we had our point when deep into added time they won two successive corners and from the second they got the goal. A disappointing end for us but there were some promising performances from some of the younger players who are new to this level.

Ton Pentre 2 Afan Lido 2

Several players were unavailable for this game  against the team at the bottom of the table. Ynys Park is never an easy place to go and with Ton looking for a first home win of the season we needed to be up for the game. We had an early goal disallowed for offside before Andre Griffiths scored against his former side to give us an interval lead. Sean Hanbury made it 2 early in the second half and we looked relatively comfortable but a poor goal kick by Steve Cann saw Ton score and give them some belief. Spurred on by the bench they continually hit long balls in the direction of the penalty area which Cai Owens in particular dealt with. However they had their reward when for once we failed to deal with a free kick and they levelled with a shot that should have been cleared. On now to Wednesday and the final game of a long long season.