Match Report
Bala Town 3 V Corwen 1
North East Wales Cup Semi Final. 05/04/08
Man of the match: Andrew Roberts
The game took place on a Ruthin Town pitch that was in excellent condition. It was Corwen who scored first, after 9 minutes, when a brilliant pass from Andy played in Gethin to slot the ball home. Unfortunately for Corwen the lead only lasted about 3 minutes, as some sloppy defending allowed Gethin Lloyd to lob the ball over Nathan.
It wasn’t long until Bala took the lead, as Craig Papyrnik scored a great goal, when he received the ball with his back to goal, and he hit his shot into on the turn into the corner of the net. Bala’s third came in similar fashion to their first, as Nathan was lobbed again, this time by Neil Fisher, which completed a decisive 15-minute spell for Bala.
A tough tackle on Richie Bodden looked like it may have cut his game short, but he managed to shake any injury off and lasted the full 90 minutes. Neither side looked like scoring again in the remainder of the first half, but it was Corwen, spurred on by a half time team talk from Dennis and Richie, who came out the brighter in the second half.
Dewi came close to reducing the deficit early in the second half, seeing his shot go just wide. Corwen continued to create a lot of chances, and hit the bar midway through the second half.
Eilir was the victim of another tough tackle, but did not suffer any serious injury, which is lucky, as with the marathon of game’s on the horizon Corwen need as many players available as possible.
However despite playing some brilliant football throughout the second half, they Welsh National League side left themselves with too much work to do to overcome their Cymru Alliance opponents, so were unable to make it 3 wins out of 4 against higher league opposition.
Corwen can take pride though from the fact they gave a good account of themselves against a team pushing for a place in the Welsh Premier and in front of a crowd of over 250 people. Gavin Billington
