With no first team game for City, this is Just a piece about various matches of interest to me that were played yesterday. I got to see a match in the afternoon, but more on that later because this is, first and foremost, a Cardiff City blog and so I have to start with another outstanding win for the under 18 side at lunchtime.
Back in September, City’s youngsters were beaten 1-0 at Leckwith by Crystal Palace in a high quality game that they were unlucky to come off second best in, but they gained full revenge in south London yesterday.
Just as they did last week against Bristol City, the Academy lads got the job done early as they scored four unanswered first half goals with Sion Spence, Sam Bowen, Keiron Evans and Rubin Colwill all finding the net in the first thirty seven minutes.
There was no more scoring as City comfortably kept their goal intact in the second half and with the wurzels doing us a favour by beating second placed Ipswich 3-0, the table makes for very satisfying reading today as it shows us nine points clear at the top.
City face Coventry at home and Ipswich away in the next couple of weeks, before finishing their league season with seven fixtures against teams from the Northern Section. They will be up against the three sides at the top of that league (Forest, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday) on successive weekends next month, but, with Ryan Reynolds back today, important players who have missed large chunks of the campaign are returning and, based on what they’ve done so far, I believe this talented group of players have enough about them to not only clinch an end of season play off place, but also a league title for themselves,
Never mind a title, the side I watched yesterday afternoon would love to be ending their campaign in mid table mediocrity, but Ton Pentre dropped to the bottom of the Nathaniel Cars Welsh League Division One with a 2-0 loss to Taffs Well at Ynys Park.
Although there has been an improvement in results from last season when they were tailed off at the bottom (one win and ten points in 17/18 compared to four wins and fourteen points so far this time around), Ton Pentre are again at the foot of the table having played more games than all but one of the four sides immediately above them.
Taffs Well are one of those teams and, in truth, there wasn’t a great deal between the two sides today, but, having seen Ton play three times now, I think they face real struggle to avoid a second successive bottom position finish.
I’m still waiting to see Ton Pentre score and, while I was quick to see myself as a some sort of Jonah when Blaenrhondda FC were beaten in the first two games I saw them play, I don’t feel the same about Ton – they’ve failed to score in eleven of their twenty league games this season (and, in a high scoring league, have only managed seventeen in those matches, despite eleven of them coming in just three games), so it doesn’t seem to make much difference if I’m there watching them or not.
Today they passed up two great chances to get an early goal, before a wild tackle presented Taffs Well with an obvious penalty which they duly put away. After that, a further goal in the first minute of the second half for the visitors meant there was no way back for Ton even though they did force the occasional good save out of the Taffs Well keeper.
Ordinarily, any struggling team would point to the fact that six of their remaining eight matches are at home as a reason for optimism about their chances of getting out of trouble, but Ton Pentre”s away record has been better than their home one over the past couple of weeks and their cause is not helped by a pitch that cannot be trusted. Maybe I don’t watch enough football at this level and all pitches are the same, but it’s so bobbly that I would never feel I had the ball under proper control if I were playing on it.
Lack of goals is the last you can accuse Blaenrhondda FC of. Yesterday they took their tally to seventy three in seventeen league matches as they followed up an 11-0 home win over bottom club Llangynwyd Rangers BGC last month with an 11-1 victory against the same opposition in the away match. The Highadmit South Wales Alliance First Division table shows that Blaenrhondda are three points behind second placed Cwmamam with three games in hand and a far better goal difference, so promotion is very much in their own hands.
As expected Newport County’s FA Cup run came to an end at Rodney Parade yesterday evening with defeat by Manchester City in the Fifth Round in front of a biggest ever football crowd at the ground of nearly 10,000. However, County again showed the ability to up their game considerably in cup matches as they held the Premier League Champions and leaders to 0-0 at half time with relatively few alarms.
A goal by Leroy Sane on fifty one minutes all but killed off hopes of home win in ninety minutes, but with the score still 1-0 going into the final fifteen minutes, extra time and penalties was still a possibility only for Phil Foden to seemingly end that hope for the home team with a second goal. However, Padraig Amond capitalised on some sloppy defending to maintain his record of scoring for Newport in every round of the competition with two minutes of normal time to go. Home hopes of a remarkable late comeback lasted no more than a minute though, as Foden scored an impressive second and Riyad Mahrez added another to give a final 4-1 scoreline that was harsh on a Newport side that gave their opponents a tougher time of it than they had experienced on their last two visits to Cardiff City Stadium.
Manchester City and Brighton’s progress into the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup makes the possibility of City only playing once in the Premier League between their home match with West Ham on March 9 and their visit to Burnley on 13 April all the more likely. The scheduled visit to Brighton on 16 March will definitely have to be rearranged and, with Man City almost certain to be favourites against whoever the draw pairs them with in the last eight, our game at the Etihad on 6 April looks a very good bet to have to be rearranged as well as the Semi Finals are to take place that weekend.
Finally, Neil Warnock and Ken Choo were in the Argentinian town of
Progreso today to attend Emiliano Sala’s funeral. There were also representatives from his former club Nantes present and one can only hope now that David Ibbotson’s family will be given the chance to get some form of closure by the discovery of their loved one’s body.
RIP to both men.
