Tuesday afternoons during the second half of last season were an unexpected pleasure because our Under 23 side, which had looked set for a bottom of the table campaign as the defeats mounted up through the autumn, suddenly switched things around as they took advantage of a run of home matches which were streamed live for supporters to watch free of charge to climb the league to the extent that a top two finish and a Play Off place became a possibility.
Tuesday afternoons came to mean entertainment and goals. Too many of them ended up in our net (we conceded a five and a six in losing to Charlton and Coventry respectively) to make up the ground lost in the first half of the campaign, but the improvement largely coincided with Mick McCarthy’s appointment and the reward for some of the youngsters was a place in the first team squad.
For one of them of course, it wasn’t just a question of a place on the bench in some first team games, he made it onto the pitch and was able to start three games, doing enough in them to earn a place in the Welsh squad for the Euros.
There was no Rubin Colwill in the side which kicked off the Under 23s’ competitive season yesterday with a game against Wigan at Cardiff City Stadium, but players such as Sam Bowen, Keenan Patten and Keiron Evans, who were all mainstays of the team last season were there, as was Tom Davies who could feel pleased with his first team debut a week ago against Sutton in the League Cup.
Perhaps it was the change of venue (all of the entertaining, goal laden matches last season I’m talking about were played at Leckwith) or maybe it was the fact that it was being played a day early, but this was a different type of match altogether. It was the sort of encounter where the better players tended to be defenders, but, thankfully for City, one of Wigan’s most highly rated ones made an error which led to the game’s only goal.
Quite early on in the game, the commentators on the stream I watched talked of sides at this level trying to play more like their first teams did and this certainly had a first team feel to it in terms of attitude. Generally speaking, it was a cagey affair with the notion of not conceding outweighing the desire to look for an opening goal.
The commentators made much of the fact that both sides played an identical formation (three centre backs with wing backs and only one genuine striker in what was described as a front three) and made it sound like the sort of stalemate this chess match produced was inevitable because teams cancel each other out when they play in such a similar way.
While I accept that to a degree, if it was all as simple as that, wouldn’t it mean that all an inferior side needed to do was mirror their opponents approach and they were almost guaranteed a draw?
What the game lacked for me was the sort of risk leading to reward approach that all of the more enterprising sides have.
To be fair, the match was not entirely risk free and, as the ones that used a high press more often and more effectively, City were the side taking what risks there were really and, as such, deserved to edge such a tight battle.
Besides the goal, most of the near misses in the ninety minutes happened around the Wigan goal. In the first half their goalkeeper Tickle made saves from Patten and Evans in one attack which originated from City winning possession quite deep in the Wigan half. Then, a few minutes later, Isaac Vassell, who played the full game, cut in from the left and ignoring the unmarked Evans inside him, chose to send in a shot which Tickle saved on his near post.
City’s press worked again when Evans gained possession about thirty yards from goal and played in Chanka Zimba who placed his shot beyond the keeper only to see it bounce back of a post.
All Wigan had to offer in reply was their trialist right wing back being sent into a gap in the left of our defence similar to the one when Barnsley equalised against us ten days ago only for him to snatch at his shot and send it harmlessly across George Ratcliffe and out for a goal kick.
If anything, the first quarter of an hour of the second period was even more tight and incident free than the first half had been and it was becoming one of those matches that the pundits say would be decided by a single goal coming from a piece of brilliance or a mistake and, just after the hour mark, it duly arrived.
Given the nature of the game, the moment of brilliance option always looked the outsider of the two and so it was proved when Jamie Carragher’s son, James (who has been linked with a few Premier League clubs this summer apparently) made the error which decided the match.
Tom Davies started the build up to the goal with a nice pass clipped down the left wing for Vassell to run onto. However, the forward’s cross was destined not to reach a team mate as Carragher, who had played well until then and would later make a fine block of an Evans shot that looked to be on its way in a few minutes later, moved towards the slowly travelling ball, but his touch was too heavy as it bounced about six feet away from him into the path of Evans who found the net easily from around eight yards out.
City had their best spell of the game after that as they took a hold of the game without being able to fashion the chance that would have made it safe. However, this superiority didn’t last and the last ten minutes or so got quite edgy as City seemed to sit back and let Wigan come on to them.
A couple of free kicks were conceded in dangerous areas and from the second of them, the previously under employed Ratcliffe made a fine save in tipping McHugh’s, shot which may have got a slight deflection on the way, over the bar.
City saw the game out though to edge an encounter in which I agreed with the commentators in naming Taylor Jones as our best player, although Davies wasn’t too far behind him in my book.
Finally, a few words about my second favourite sport, cricket. At the same time as the game was taking place, Glamorgan were playing in the Semi Final of the fifty overs Cup a mile or so away at Sophia Gardens against Essex and when I switched streams to the football, they looked to be going out of the competition as their opponents were well on the way to compiling a huge score.
However, when I rejoined the stream for the cricket after the end of the Under 23 game, Essex had collapsed somewhat to 289 all out, a total which still seemed too many to me for our somewhat suspect batting line up.
Glamorgan rose to the challenge brilliantly though as Hamish Rutherford, spectacularly, and Nick Selman, more sedately, got them off to a fine start and when a bit of a mid innings stutter appeared to make Essex favourites, Tom Cullen and Joe Cooke (an obvious Man of the Match with five wickets to go with his unbeaten sixty six) put on an unbeaten 111 to steer us to a five wicket win over opponents that featured many of what would be their strongest line up.
I mention that because this has been very much a second class tournament as far as a media fixated by the shiny new tournament called The Hundred were concerned. Up to now, it has barely merited a mention on Sky and the Final has been shoehorned into Thursday at Trent Bridge by an ECB with bigger fish, and money making opportunities to fry.
To be fair, many counties, including Glamorgan, have lost very important one day players to The Hundred, but it is still a fine achievement for the Welsh county to make their first one day Final in eight years and the fact that they topped their qualifying group shows that it is no fluke that they have gone so far in the competition.
The other Semi Final is being played today between Durham and Surrey and I daresay the winners of that match will be regarded as favourites in the Final, but Glamorgan will take great heart from beating Essex and here’s hoping an unexpected trophy can be won to cap what had been a pretty good season for the Welsh county anyway.
