Match Details
Date: Wednesday 17 August 2016
Result: 1-1 (draw)
Starting XI- Sean Jones, Darnell Prescott, Paul Griffiths (c), Wez Parry, Jack Richards, Stuart Thornley, Nic Jones, Lloyd Royce, Josh Foulkes, Alex Williams, Oliver Davies
Substitutes – Les Morris, Owain Parry, Josh Valentine
Goalscorer(s):
Alex Williams
MOM: Nic Jones
The sun was shining in Cefn Mawr and a large crowd turned up to the muga for Cefn Albion’s first ever home fixture at WNL League Premier Division level. Following Friday nights excellent 1-1 draw away at Corwen the team were looking to kick on and pick up all three points.
The squad was left slightly thin on the ground with our goal keeper Jamie Rawlinson (Dislocated finger), Nathan Williams (Work), Dion Gibbins (Holiday) and Mario Duarte (international clearance) all unavailable. However, this gave opportunities to a few other lads including 16 year old Lloyd Royce who chalked up his first competitive 90 minutes in an Albion shirt.
The away team started brightly and were denied by the crossbar in the opening 10 minutes but it was Albion who created the better clear cut chances should have gone into the break winning. The opposing keeper made some excellent one on one saves from to deny Oliver Davies on more than one occasion. -0-0 HT.
Second half was quite similar to the first with Albion having the better clear cut chances but Welfare looking dangerous on the break. On 70 minutes the away team took the lead when an dubious offside was waved away by the assistant and they made no mistake finding the corner of the net. It took Albion only 5 minutes to get back on level terms when the prolific Alex Williams volleyed home a fine equaliser. Both sides pushed for the equaliser but it was Cefn who almost snatched it at the death when man of the match Nic Jones rattled the cross bar with a good header.
Given the lads we had unavailable another decent draw and the boys involved stuck together to put in another solid performance and proving that the Albion will be a hard team to beat. Only slight worry from last night was our captain Paul Griffiths had to leave the pitch with 10 minutes remaining due to an ankle injury picked up during the second half.
The first team now look to AFC Brynford away on Saturday in the Welsh Cup Qualifier.
