A WIN FOR CITY AS SEASON KICKS OFF
THE start of a new season, then, and instead of a cavernous, empty all-purpose arena, Neil Warnock chose a small corner of South Wales.
It seemed surreal watching Cardiff City’s Championship all-stars taking on a team of significantly smaller stature with the green Welsh countryside for a backdrop, but that’s how Warnock wanted it.
Taff’s Well offered a unique starting line to the Bluebirds’ marathon season.
The atmosphere wasn’t hostile, it wasn’t a rainy windy November night, but it was unfamiliar to players fed on a diet of high-tech facilities and highprotein diets.
But Cardiff ’s quality just shone through.
From the moment Anthony Pilkington put the Bluebirds ahead inside six minutes with a sumptuous turning volley, the result was barely in doubt.
There wasn’t the ranting and raving we’ve come to expect from Warnock on the sidelines. The veteran manager won’t reach those levels of intensity yet and, in truth, neither did his players – but nor did they need to.
It was a benevolent Bluebirds boss that greeted almost everybody packed around the Rhiw’r Ddar stadium, which boasted an appreciative crowd of 2,900.
First and foremost, for everyone involved, this was about charity and community, with two charities, Velindre and Cancer Research – both close to Warnock’s heart – the major beneficiaries, and of course Taff’s Well, whose hospitality was without fault.
The Bluebirds fans, who enjoyed a great Friday night out in the South Wales sun, were treated too.
Their side laid on just a single goal to embellish the occasion further, but this was about more than the result.
Warnock fielded two separate teams: one for the first half, another for the second.
And it was in that first 45 minutes that Cardiff supporters got a glimpse of their new heroes, Nathaniel MendezLaing, Neil Etheridge, Danny Ward and Loic Damour all shining for stints in the opening period.
Former Rochdale man MendezLaing certainly caught the eye. Not just with his towering physical presence but his crafty link-up play too.
He’d shifted to a centre forward position when Pilkington hobbled off shortly after his sixth minute strike. And alongside Ward, Cardiff had a new striker partnership to admire. They’ll certainly need options aside from the prolific Kenneth Zohore – absent here after his summer was elongated due to international duty – in the coming campaign.
Another new forward, Lee Tomlin, was present in the crowd and happy to pose for the odd selfie or two. All for the occasion.
So while the game was, for large parts, a tale of frustration for the Bluebirds, the occasion demanded they played with creativity and freedom, at times guilty of trying to score the ‘perfect’ goal.
That surely won’t be the case when the rigours of a Championship November are screeching at the ears of players and management. It can be a cruel division with an energy-sapping schedule meaning Tuesday night to Saturday afternoon turnarounds eke every last drop from a player’s body, and eking out results becomes paramount.
But for this Friday night, Cardiff could experiment. Matty Kennedy was a box full of tricks in the first half – pressing his case for the first team after spending most of last season on loan at Plymouth – while Joe Ralls looked a class apart in midfield, his energy and tough too much for Taff’s Well at times.
The second half saw opportunities for those on the fringes. We may not see much more of Craig Noone or Declan John in a Bluebirds shirt but both were given wide berths for the second 45 minutes, emboldened by an encouraging Warnock.
The boss also kept faith with young James Waite, who had replaced Pilkington early on. It was heart-warming to see the famously hard-to-please boss wrap an arm round the Under23s man at half-time. Waite partnered another returning loan star, Stuart O’Keefe, in midfield with Ibrahim Meite and Mark Harris up front for the second 45 minutes.
Harris is a genuine rising star of Welsh football and the 18-year-old blossomed briefly to suggest he could have a part to play when the real action commences. So too the pacy Meite, yet
another forward option. But the Bluebirds were blunted by a professional Taff’s Well outfit, who maybe feared the worst when they went behind inside six minutes. Their early nerves calmed though and the Wellmen can be proud of their efforts.
Cardiff failed to double their advantage despite major second half chances for Noone (twice) and Meite, as the hosts held them up.
The pace had slowed significantly by then; perhaps a sign of tiring legs among the Taff’s Well troops but mainly because of the relaxed nature of this friendly fixture.
In another world maybe Warnock would have been bawling instructions from the touchline. In another world he’d have bemoaned the modest winning margin. But he will save that for another day.
Lessons will be learned from this game, for sure, but the marathon is barely beyond its opening bend. We all have much more to glean before the Bluebirds’ promotion aspirations can be properly assessed.
Cardiff City (first half): Etheridge; Coxe, Bamba, Morrison (capt), Bennett; Mendez-Laing, Ralls, Damour, Kennedy; Pilkington (Waite, 14), Ward.
Second half: Etheridge (Burn, 65); Coxe (Young, 65), Manga, Connolly, Abbruzzese; Noone, Waite (Humphries 63), O’Keefe, John; Harris, Meite.