Gareth
Couch made his first team debut in goal with Dale Lambrick and
Ceri
Cook making first appearances from the bench while there was a
welcome
return for Paul Evans at centre back. Taffs for the first
half played down
the slope and for most of the half it looked as though we'd
go in on level
terms but they scored two minutes before the break..
Our first attack saw an offside decision against Steve Davies and
it was 4
minutes before Gareth Couch had his first touch when he caught an
overhit
cross with no pressure. After 6 minutes Paul Evans cushioned
a header down
for Craig Martin to clear but Craig missed his kick allowing the
Taffs
strikers a run on goal but we recovered at the expense of a corner
which we
cleared. After 8 minutes we created our best chance of the
half, we spread
the ball from Couchey in goal through to Carl Edwards wide left
and he won a
throw deep in Taffs territory. Paul Evans headed across goal
beating the
keeper but with an open goal Steve Davies just couldn't get the
touch,
Kieran Howells from beyond the far post and from a tight angle
could only
shoot high and wide. We struggled on times in the first half
by giving the
ball away, several free kicks were played straight to Taffs
players who then
put us under pressure with their quick breaks. An example of
that happened
on 26 minutes, we had a free kick, played it straight to a Taffs
player who
closed in on goal only for Gareth Couch to make a fine save at the
expense
of a corner.
On 34 minutes we had a corner wide left which
Andrew Pearson
took, there was a scramble in the penalty area before the ball
again found
Andrew but his shot went just wide. 5 minutes before the
break Corey Thomas
lost the ball 40 yards out in the middle of the field but once
again Gareth
Couch made a fine save to deny the home side. Just as it
looked as if we'd
get to the interval all square they scored. The ref awarded
them a free
kick 25 yards out on the right and Leigh Ashman took the free kick
and with
his left foot curled it right into the top right hand corner of
the goal.
Playing down the slope we coped a lot better, (probably after
Mark's half
time talk!) but straight from the kick off we gained a corner,
there was a
goalmouth scramble before Taffs managed to clear and break but
Chris Latham
cut out the danger before feeding Steve Davies who motored down
the right
but his cross was too far ahead of us.
On 57 minutes we replaced
Andrew
Wright with Dale Lambrick who was making his debut. Just after the
hour a
Taffs cross from the left was palmed out by Gareth it was met just
inside
the area by a Taffs player who hit a powerful shot which was
blocked by the
onrushing Carl Edwards. We went down the other end and had a
series of
three corners, the third was headed off the line. Again we
had a series of
free kicks which all came to nothing, one thing that was hampering
us was
the referee. Each time we tried to take a quick free kick
he'd stop us as
he wanted to speak to the Taffs player. Obviously by the
time he'd finished
that they had organised their defence. With 20 minutes to go
Gareth Couch
turned another shot over the bar for a corner then he held the
cross and
threw out to start another attack. Out of nothing Dale
Lambrick picked the
ball up in midfield and played a beautifully weighted pass between
the Taffs
central defenders for Andrew Pearson to run on to. Andrew
made ground and
with the Taffs keeper closing him down fired past him into the
empty net
from just outside the area.
With just over a quarter of an
hour to go Ceri
Cook made his debut replacing Corey Thomas. With 10 minutes
to go Taffs won
a corner off Aaron Keefe, Gareth Couch made an excellent save off
a downward
header the ball went to Steve Davies who relieved the pressure by
carrying
the ball into the Taffs half before the ball went out of play.
With 6
minutes to go we had a free kick on the half way Carl Edwards
knocked it
forward and we were awarded a second free kick on the edge of the
area,
again the ref delayed us taking the kick and there was a huge gap
which we
could have exploited. When we eventually did take it the
ball hit the wall
and was cleared. In the final 5 minutes both sides were
awarded free kicks
that weren't obvious from the sidelines luckily for us they failed
to take
advantage of theirs while we had one in added on time which Ceri
Cook headed
down for Andrew Pearson. Unluckily for Andrew the ball just
didn't come
down quickly enough allowing the Taffs defence to crowd him out
and clear.
Lido Squad
Gareth Couch Chris Latham Andrew Wright Aaron
Keefe Paul Evans Craig
Martin Steve Davies Kieran Howells Corey Thomas
Andrew Pearson Carl
Edwards
Subs 12 Dale Lambrick for Andrew Wright 57
14 Luke
Harrington 15 Shaun
Best
16 Ceri
Cook for Corey Thomas 74
17 Tomas
Wellington
One booking Dale Lambrick 90 + 3
Report by Peter
Reynolds. |
