The Saints are out of the Welsh Cup after losing to Holywell Town FC 4-2.
Brendan Hackett scored both the goals.
The Saints started the tie as underdogs and it took just 90 seconds to see why, Sam Jones burst through only to be thwarted by a brilliant save by keeper Tom Lewis. Two minutes later the striker made no mistake giving the home side the lead after a misplaced pass was intercepted, Jones finished well past a diving Lewis for 1-0.
Holywell showed why they got to the semi-final last season,however, Lewis was in top form making several saves to keep us in the tie.
In one of our first attacks Kevin Jones threaded a through ball to Brendan Hackett who prodded home on 15 minutes, the linesman flagged for offside but the referee overruled him 1-1.
The Saints had to soak up a lot of pressure, the defence did well in this period and were being protected by Matty James and captain Stu Davies,however in the 22nd minute Holywell were awarded a penalty after James was adjudged to have fouled Jones. (I didn’t think it was a penalty but I thought they should have had one two minutes earlier.) The lively Jones scored to put Holywell 2-1 up.
The remainder of the half saw more Holywell pressure with us having to defend our lines time after time, Lewis was having the game of his life in goal, Hackett did go on a mazy run but his long range effort went over the bar. HT 2-1
We saw more of the ball in the second half, we were still under a lot of pressure but had a lot more possession than we did in the first period, manager Gareth Jenkins changed formation and bravely broughout on two strikers (Biggs and McNamara) for Lawford and Jones and went to 4 4 2 instead of 4 5 1.
Unfortunately it was that man Jones who again found the net in the 71st minute to put the hosts 3-1 up after a good move.
In the 80th minute a quite bizarre period of play happened, firstly we were awarded a penalty which was brilliantly saved by former Newtown keeper Michael Platt, Hackett tried to get to the rebound but the ball ended going out for a corner, someone said something to the referee so he awarded us a free kick around 7 yards out. From the free kick Hackett passed to Biggs but his shot was well blocked by a wall of Holywell players (see pics), as we tried to win the ball back the referee awarded another penalty after the goalkeeper pushed Jack Biggs over. This time Hackett sent him the wrong way to make it 3-2 after 82 minutes, it didn’t end there, on the way back to take kick off the Holywell number 11 said something to the referee and was shown a straight red.
This is when I was most impressed with Holywell, they kept the ball for the entire ten minutes of the game, we just couldn’t get it off them and to rub salt into our wounds they scored again in the 92nd minute with the last play of the match. FT 4-2.
This was a great experience for our very young side who gave it all against a top team, their captain and striker was different class on the day and rightly won the sponsors man of the match. Our own Tom Lewis was our man of the match, he couldn’t do anything for the goals but saved many more throughout the 90 minutes.
Good luck to Hollywell in the next round.
Team-
Tom Lewis, Sam Bradley(Jake Davies), Jake Atkinson, Jordan Baker, Stu Davies(c), Matt James, Adi Lawford(Rob McNamara), Phil Davies, Tom James, Kevin Jones(Jack Biggs), Brendan Hackett. Unused subs Rory Hackett, Adam Finn.
Photos and match report to follow.
Photos by Stu Townsend.