THE NATHANIEL CARS WELSH FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION TWO
CROESYCEILIOG .......... 0 AFC LLWYDCOED ........ 1
LLWYDCOED’S away trip to Croes saw them gain a hard earned victory with a solitary goal, scored by Gabriel Williams early in the first half.
The Llwydcoed management team selected the same line-up as last week.
They set the early tempo with Tomos Morris linking the play up. Croes’s Lewis Claire tried to create an opening that Llwydcoed’s Levi Jones cleared, helped by Gabriel Williams.
The match needed some quality of play to improve the standard and Llwydcoed supplied it with Joe Jenkins, Ioan Evans, Ricky Carter and Levi Jones linking up from defence/midfield.
The Croes defence were being tested at regular times, they won a corner kick that the Croes defence failed to clear and Gabriel Williams scored.
The Croes midfield/ defence were being put under constant pressure by Tomos Morris, Oliver Roberts and Jonathan Mason but no more goals.
The playing surface helped as well just as Ioan Evans was through the ball just took a horrible bounce and was cleared.
It only seemed a matter of time before Llwydcoed would add to their scoreline but the final ball was missing or the wrong option was chosen.
Croes, although being outplayed, tried to build some attacks through Ryan Hayward and Daniel Pritchard whose free kick was charged down for Llwydcoed to break away, but another opportunity was missed, a superb cross field ball by Levi Jones invited a Llwydcoed player to attack it but that opportunity was missed as well.
The second half began with Llwydcoed still controlling the match from midfield with Tomos Morris, Joe Jenkins and Jonathan Mason combining.
Then Croes had their best spell winning the 50/50 challenges and testing the young Llwydcoed defence, superbly organised by Adam Butler.
The Llwydcoed goalkeeper, Andy Hargreaves, had not been tested up to this stage, his kicking out of hand was first class when needed.
The Croes players Jack Sainsbury and Daniel Pritchard created their best chance breaking open the Llwydcoed defence but as in the first half the ball took a horrible bounce as the hosts attacker Ryan Hayward was about to shoot.
This was Croes’s best period of play.
Lewis Clare forced the Llwydcoed goalkeeper Andy Hargreaves into an excellent low save, the visitors were not able to create any sustained attacks as in the first half.
They introduced substitutes Shay Friel and Callum Henry to try and regain the midfield control at a difficult time.
Croes had gained the momentum in the second half but Llwydcoed players saw out the match to win the points.