Wyn's winner stuns champs

From the Western Telegraph, first published Wednesday 18th Aug 2004.

Welsh Premier football league HAVERFORDWEST COUNTY 2 RHYL 1 Last season, on the Bridge Meadow, the Bluebirds beat every one of the top sides and they showed on Saturday it was no fluke with a splendid win against a fast and fluent Lilywhites side.

In the wake of the departure of Harris, Heal and Griffiths, the continuing move to a strong local base in the Blues side continued. Deryn Brace returned from injury, Dean Rossiter and Timmy Hicks continued from their European campaigns.

Dylan Blain once again showed the crowd that he really must be a first team regular again, while there was a very welcome return to the fray for Richie Adams, partnering Hicks up front. Lee Hudgell and Niko Algieri, making his Welsh Premier debut, made sub appearances.

The play burst into action and the Blues looked good going forward from the start. In the seventh minute they won three corner kicks out on the right.

Three times Colin Loss fired the ball in low and hard. Twice the Rhyl defence got in big clearing headers, but on the third attempt the ball broke loose in the box for Dylan Blain to crack in a real scorcher of a right foot shot from 18 yards, to leave keeper Smith absolutely stranded. A deserved lead.

Rhyl did get plenty of play between the seventh and the 17th minutes but whether their equalizer was quite as deserved as Blain's goal is a matter of some doubt.

A Chris Adamson corner from the left was only half cleared and the ball was eventually played back across the box for Adamson to set out on a run round Deryn Brace.

The gaffer was penalized for bringing Adamson down, but the Lilywhites winger was in fact motoring away from him fairly quickly and had enough momentum after contact to go into an airborne arc and for the referee to be persuaded that it was indeed a penalty. Marc Limbert converted decisively.

For fifteen minutes or so, Rhyl looked dangerous. A cross from Limbert threatened, but Wyn Thomas cut in to clear. Lee Hunt then found himself played into space with only Kendall to beat but shot tamely wide from 12 yards. But meanwhile Rhyl showed themselves extremely profligate for title contenders as they gave away one free kick after another in the developing midfield tussle.

In the last part of the first half, the Bluebirds started to pile on some pressure. Hicks' 25-yard shot wasn't too far off, Wayne Jones fired over and then came the incident that was to remain a talking point until the 89th minute. Keeper Smith seemed to field a back pass with his hand and the howls of appeal and protest rang from the pitch to the stand to Mickey Lewis' dug-out. The referee wasn't impressed.

The final foray of the half was a brilliant run down the left by Adams, whose curling cross was inches away from Hicks and Nick Palmer.

A feature of the half had been the ongoing feud between keeper Kendall and the batch of Rhyl fans behind his goal. Certainly it was alleged that the keeper was spat at and that stones were thrown, although the Rhyl contingent claimed later that Kendall had been winding them up.

This seemed a curious complaint since they had sought out Kendo's goal as a vantage point and they outnumbered him by thirty to one anyway. Sadly, it simply added to the rather unfriendly atmosphere that the Bluebirds tend now to encounter when they play Rhyl.

The second half saw Rhyl have maybe a 75 per cent territorial advantage. They swept upfield, fluently and crisply, with Limbert and Stuart Graves prompting matters extremely well in midfield.

Yet the remarkable fact is that not once in the second half did they get a direct shot on target. The defence which had been the third meanest in Britain last year once again played them wide, harassed, backpedalled and chivvied, and only occasionally, in the last quarter, did Rhyl threaten.

One Graves ball into the box led to the most almighty scramble before it was cleared, and Gareth Wilson fired narrowly over from an acute angle. Thereafter the Lilywhites were contained.

The defensive line of Blain, Thomas, Dave Barnhouse and Jones, were all superb, and match sponsors Withybush Coach Works picked Dylan Blain as man of the match. My own feeling was that, well as Blain played, the best performance of all came from Deryn Brace. He plugged gaps, covered, intercepted and snapped at the heels of the Rhyl defence from the first minute to the 90th.

There were meanwhile fine performances from Rossiter, Palmer and Loss in midfield, Hicks and Adams hammered endlessly at a stubborn Rhyl defence, and the subs also made a real impact.

The classy Darren Ryan pepped up the midfield, Lee Hudgell looked dangerous on the left, while Niko Algieri, making his Welsh Premier debut, was instrumental in the making of the winning goal.

His darting little run down the right forced the corner which Ryan curled with an inswinger to the far post for Wyn Thomas to swoop forward and direct his header into Smith's goal.

Notice has gone out now to the rest of the league that they should beware the Bluebirds. And we all hope Rhyl enjoy the rest of their season, because they and their supporters clearly didn't enjoy Saturday at all.

Next Saturday the Blues travel to Caersws and fans wishing to travel should ring the club on 01437-769048, any morning between 9am and 1pm. The following weekend they return to the Meadow to play Airbus UK.

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