We only had 4 players from last week's squad while the home team had 10. Once again they had the first booking of the game when Paul Shepherd was booked after only 6 minutes. Unfortunately for us they took the lead after 7 minutes when Matthew Hearne picked up a clearance and drove it through a crowd of players and into the net.  Again they attacked down our left after 12 minutes but Wyn stood tall and saved their attempted chip.

Caerleon doubled their lead on 15 minutes when Shaun Best failed to cut out a cross to the right, Matthew Hearne cut inside and shot past Wyn for his second goal. Typical of our luck was seen at 17 minutes when Andrew Pearson crossed for Shaun Best, his shot was deflected for a corner but the referee gave a goal kick despite the linesman flagging for the corner. On 23 minutes the Caerleon keeper's goal kick went straight to Andrew Pearson, he played it wide to Steve Davies who made ground and crossed. With several players converging the keeper made amends by just grabbing the ball ahead of our attackers. On 32 minutes we went three down when Aaron Keefe handled on the edge of the area, however the linesman flagged for offside but the ref chose to ignore the flag allowing Matthew Hearne to score and claim a hat trick.

Three minutes into the second half Steve Davies put in a terrific cross which the keeper had to hold with attackers waiting to pounce. Corey Thomas then brought the ball down fed Andrew Pearson who turned and fired just wide. On the hour we forced a couple of corners and despite the ball bobbling around no-one was able to make it count. Then Corey won the ball out wide, cut inside beating two defenders and fed Andrew Pearson. Andrew's shot hit the keeper and bounced onto the post before going for a corner. Their 11 Paul Shepherd was then sent off for a second yellow for tackling from behind.

They now concentrated on defence and we pushed several players forward but we just couldn't get a goal.  On 67 minutes Corey Thomas picked the ball up some 25 yards out and his shot smacked against the post and rebounded to safety. Minutes later Aaron Keefe made an important interception in our area, the ball was cleared to Steve Davies and he hit the crossbar from 30 yards. He then tried his luck again only to find the keeper, the ref also adjudged a foul in their area not to be a penalty for us. But it had to come, Steve Davies took a left wing corner which went straight in, buoyed by this we continued to attack and shots from Andrew Pearson, Corey Thomas, Steve Davies and Tomas Wellington all went close before the ref blew up to give Caerleon passage into the next round.

Lido side  Wyn Walters  Damon Thomas  Shaun Morgan  Aaron Keefe  Craig Martin  Tomas Wellington  Steve Davies  Kieran Howells  Corey Thomas  Andrew Pearson  Shaun Best

Subs:   12  Darren Franks
          14 Luke Borrelli for Shaun Best 67
          15 Remi Whitelock for Damon Thomas 63
          16 Rory McCreesh
          17 Adam Beynon

Yellow Cards  Shaun Morgan  9  Kieran Howells  34  Tomas Wellington  40
Steve Davies  53
 

Report by Peter Reynolds.