City must beat Druids in bid to catch Nomads
BANGOR City will go into this Sunday’s home clash with Cefn Druids hoping that a victory will draw them level on points with secondplaced Connah’s Quay Nomads.
The Nomads moved three points ahead of the Citizens with two games apiece left to play last weekend after Andy Morrison’s side edged past Kevin Nicholson’s men 1-0 at Deeside Stadium.
Bangor were far more competitive than they had been in a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of the Quay in a Welsh Cup semi-final seven days earlier.
However, the allblues still slumped to back-to-back defeats against a Nomads outfit reduced to 10 men for the final halfhour.
Quay play first this weekend when they visit The New Saints on Friday. Bangor will be hoping the champions are victorious as that would enable them to restore points parity with the Deesiders if they overcome Druids on Sunday (3pm kick-off ).
However, that will be easier said than done with the Ancients finishing the campaign in fine form.
City manager Nicholson has no intention of giving up on finishing second in the Welsh Premier and securing automatic qualification for Europe.
“We’ve got two games left, we’ll try and win both of them,” said the Citizens chief. “Nothing’s over yet. Until it’s mathematically impossible for us to finish second we’ll keep fighting till that last minute of that last game.”
Nicholson was scathing of his team’s display in the Welsh Cup semi, but insisted they restored lost pride in the return.
“It was an excellent reaction to a really poor performance last week,” he said.
“I said after last week’s game it was a freak result, a freak performance and I was certainly proved right today because there was absolutely nothing in that game until they scored.
“We hit the bar 30 seconds or a minute before they score, which was the closest anyone came up to that point; then the goal came from a simple straightforward cross into the box which was not dealt with.
“Obviously when you concede the first goal against this team they’re very difficult to come back against as they’ve got the best defensive record in the league.
“But we didn’t crumble at that point; we kept trying, kept probing, probably the quality wasn’t good enough in that last 10-15 minutes to get a goal back, but the team was applauded off by the supporters and I think they deserved it.”
The match turned on two incidents 60 seconds apart after the break.
In the 57th minute, Bangor’s Dean Rittenburg went on a run and keeper John Danby flew off his line to save. The ball came to Luke Wall who shot at the open goal from 25 yards but smacked the crossbar.
Soon after Callum Morris nodded into the Bangor goal from close range.
Nomads striker Andy Owens broke clear, but was denied by a fabulous stop from Matthew Hall.
Quay defender Jonny Spittle was sent off after a bad challenge on Steven Hewitt, but the visitors were unable to make the man advantage count, Hewitt going desperately close late on.
RACE FOR SECOND PLACE:
Connah’s Quay Nomads Pld 30 Pts 57 (GD +21); Bangor City Pld 30 Pts 54 (+15). Remaining fixtures - Fri, Apr 20: The New Saints v Nomads. Sun, Apr 22: Bangor City v Cefn Druids. Fri, Apr 27: Cefn Druids v Nomads. Fri, Apr 27: Bala Town v Bangor City.