Port ship 7 in shocker

PORTHMADOG suffered a disastrous second-half collapse at Gresford Athletic where, after leading 1-0 at half-time, they conceded seven goals without reply, writes GARETH WILLIAMS.

Blown away is an appropriate description on an afternoon where the gale force wind had such a negative impact on the game.

Both teams had entered the game keyed up for this vital relegation battle but on a day, when a top performance was required, Port put in one which was way below the expected standard, and one of the worse in the memory of the travelling support.

The win means that Gresford have almost certainly ensured their safety, while Port, now 12 points adrift of the Wrexham area club, know they have a mountain to climb and will need to shake off the memory of this defeat immediately and concentrate on the 11 remaining games.

Port had the wind on their backs in the opening half as well as the advantage of the slope, knowing that gaining a good lead by the interval was an imperative, as playing into such a wind would be a major problem and unlikely to yield much in the way of goals.

But despite the wind advantage after 20 minutes of play Port had one corner and a decent effort on goal from Cai Jones to show for their efforts.

It was all too frenetic with Port intent on moving the ball downfield as quickly as possible with long airborne balls and crossfield passes too often being overhit and proving difficult to control or keep on the field of play such was the strength of the wind.

This only played into Gresford’s hands who were happy to slow the game down and let the first half pass by as uneventfully as possible while waiting their turn to have the typhoon on their backs. On 23 minutes Port did take the lead, Cai Jones’s cross whipped in from the left touchline towards the far post proved a nightmare to defend and Shaun Cavanagh was at the back post to squeeze the ball inside the post and past the two defenders.

But even after this the pattern of play did not change with Josh Davies and Cavanagh often left to chase lost causes as the wind carried over hit passes into touch or over for goal kicks.

The strength of the wind can be gauged from Paul Pritchard’s decision to attempt a strike directly at goal from the halfway line and it was not far off target.

Half-time arrived and, despite the obvious advantages, there was only Cavanagh’s goal to show.

Despite being a goal down Gresford were clearly the happier of the two at the interval and soon put Port to the sword.

An early sighter from Jake Eyre showed their intent and on 51 minutes they wiped out the slender lead.

Danny Holland found space on the edge of the box and fired a low shot just inside Pritchard’s right hand post. Minutes later and Holland repeated the dose with a shot from 20 yards to put the home team ahead.

It was one-way traffic now and when the ball was allowed to run into the Port box, Eyre nipped in to score. Jack Jones rose at the back post to head Gresford’s fourth and with an hour gone there was clearly no way back for Port.

When it seemed that things could hardly get worse they did. John Owen had to be helped off the pitch to be replaced by Jamie McDaid and Gareth Jones Evans received a straight red card for a tackle. In between these incidents former Port forward Joe Chaplin turned a free kick into the net from close range for Gresford’s fifth.

Port continued to fight to the end and Iwan Lewis put in some good work after coming on and Cai Jones had a good late effort on goal. However it was left to Gresford to rub salt in the wound with two further goals from sub Alex Buxton. All in all a day of triumph for the home team and a day to erase from the memory for the visitors.

Yes, there was a gale force wind, yes the pitch was difficult and yes there were some strange refereeing decisions but today there were no excuses.

Manager Craig Papirnyk said: “My sincere apologies to Porthmadog and the supporters.”