Good afternoon and welcome to the officials, players and supporters of Cwmamman United Football Club to the Marston’s Stadium for this afternoon’s FAW Welsh Cup First Round tie.

I’d also like to welcome the three officials, Alan Boore who’s in the middle with Mike Pedlar and Martin Summers assisting. All three are from Cardiff.

Our opponents currently lead Division 3 with 4 wins out of 4 therefore we can expect a difficult match against determined opponents.

Our last 2 away games have proved fruitless with 2 defeats on the road against Ton Pentre & Goytre.  Against Ton Pentre we showed great character in the second half having been 1-0 down to equalise and we really took the game to them. Unfortunately we missed a few chances and came unstuck with 2 very late goals.

Our last match against Goytre proved to be much the same.  We could have been a couple of goals up at half time but again failed to take our chances.  Again in the 2nd half 1 or 2 chances went begging and just when it seemed a draw was inevitable, up popped Richard Ryan to pounce and win them the game.  Personally I don’t think there is an awful lot wrong with our game, box to box we are more than competing but in both penalty areas we are letting ourselves down.  Believe you me these defeats are hurting all concerned at the moment as this is new territory for me as in 13 years of management this is the 1st time I have lost 3 consecutive matches.

All is not lost however with Mark Jones returning on loan and Darren Griffiths a week away from returning after an appendix operation. Tom Wellington has returned and impressed alongside another youngster in Shaun Morgan.  Steve Cox has left the club and we wish him well at his next club. 

Get behind the lads they need all the encouragement they can get at the moment.  Let’s hope we get the result and are in the hat for Round 2 tonight.

Enjoy the game,

Craig.

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