Llanelli Town vs Cwmbran Celtic

Match Report

Celtic travelled to Stebonheath for a difficult fixture with Llanelli who must surely be one of the favourites to take the Cymru South title this season. Llanelli included Lewis Iles in their line-up who moved from Celtic in July.

Like last Saturday, Celtic were slow out of the blocks and the task ahead of them wasn’t helped when, in the 6^th minute, Josh Winstone drilled a goal kick all along the ground straight to Llanelli’s Bradley Gibbings. He moved it sharply to Ethan Cann who hit a powerful low shot past Winstone into the far corner of the net to put the hosts 1-0 up. Celtic looked really sluggish and were finding it difficult to get into the game and it was no surprise when some poor defending allowed Lewis Iles to feed Joe Lloyd who expertly dispatched his shot past Winstone.

Llanelli continued to dominate the game with Celtic only showing brief snatches of any sort of threat and certainly didn’t trouble Scott Coughlin in the home goal.

Half-time: Llanelli 2 Celtic 0

Celtic need to improve on their first half performance if they were to avoid a possible heavy defeat and they did! They pulled a goal back in the 51^st minute when Coughlin failed to hold on to a fierce free kick from Alex Bonthron. Tom Meechan just failed to get to the loose ball, but it then fell nicely for Jordan Meaney to calmly side foot it into the net. This gave the team even more impetus and they were now working much harder to close their opponents down and not allow them space to create anything going forward. Tom Meechan came close to equalising with a dipping volley, similar to the one he scored with on Saturday. Unfortunately, on this occasion it took a deflection on route which was just enough to lift it on to the bar and over for a corner.

Celtic continued to have at least as much of the game as their opponents but were finding it difficult to create any clear cut chances. It was probably against the run of play when Llanelli added to their tally in the 86^th minute. Ethan Cann found Danny Williams unmarked at the far post and he had the easy task of side-footing it into the net.

Full-time: Llanelli 3 Celtic 1

In many ways, this was a similar performance to the previous Saturday – a disappointing first half performance followed by a much improved one in the second. It’s already looking like there not going to be any easy games in the Cymru South this season and the team is going to have to find a way of being at their best for the full 90 minutes if they are going to compete and move up the table.

Supporters MOM: Jordan Meaney