Presteigne beat the Saints 4-3 with a 96th minute winner coming from the spot after referee Rob Evans awarded a penalty when Sam Bradley cleared the ball and Brian Dyer tripped over his leg.
The Saints started brightly knocking the ball around with confidence, a Kevin Jones cross nearly found Lewis Pritchard at the back post but his outstretched leg couldn’t quite reach the ball. Presteigne started growing in confidence with the impressive Christian Roverts hitting the bar from a corner, two minutes later he made no mistake, his header from another corner giving Josh Davies in the Hay goal no chance.
The Saints hit back immeadiately after Pritchard got on the end of a Kevin Jones flick on and beat Simon Hamer from 12 yards out. The game was evenly balanced at 1-1 when two wonder goals were scored in the space of 4 minutes, first up was that man Roberts again after a Chris Preece header unluckily hit a Presteigne player and fell to the young striker who hit a 25 yarder past Davies to put the hosts 2-1 up. The Saints were right back in it a few minutes later, Johnny Daw hit another 25 yarder this one from an angle, the ball flew over Hamer giving him no chance, when the ref blew for half time, most supporters from both sides agreed that the 2-2 score was a fair account of the first half.
Presteigne started the brighter in the second half but it was the visitors who nearly took the lead, after a good passing move the ball fell to Jones in the box, he turned and hit a right foot shot that had goal written all over it until Hamer pulled off a brilliant save at full stretch.
The Saints did go in front on the hour mark after a bizzare goal, the ball was pinging back and forth in the box until Phil Davies scuffed his shot past Hamer, the ball hit the post then hit Hamer on the shin and rolled into the back of the net.
Presteigne threw everything at Hay in the last 15 minutes but Preece and his defence seemed comfortable until a cross from the left was headed in by Roberts to claim his hat-trick with 10 minutes to go.
Somehow the ref seemed to find an extra 6 minutes of extra time, in that period Roberts nearly netted again his shot going inches wide, then another cross into the box saw Tom James making a clearance yards from the line, from the resulting corner the penalty was awarded and scored by one of the Presteigne subs. ft 4-3.
This was a great advert for local football with both sides playing the game the right way, I thought we desereved a point, the referee made a mistake at the end, I was with the Presteigne chairman and a couple of other locals who all said it wasn’t a penalty, Mr Randell also said he would of been happy with a point as it was a tight game.
Preecy had a great game at the back but my Saints man of the match would go to Stu Davies, the man of the match though would go to Christian Roberts of Presteigne, he looked a player and a half!
Next up Llanfyllin at home.