Survival battle helped by first win of season (From Barry And District News)

Survival battle helped by first win of season

SATURDAY'S thrilling 5-4 win against Welsh-pool has given Barry Town a lifeline in their battle to stay in the Welsh Prem-ier League.

Barry Town had played 1,890 minutes of league football this season without a victory.

The club's new director of football, Colin Addison said: "Can we stay up? That's the 64-million-dollar question. There are lots of games left and plenty to play for. It is going to be very difficult but we have certainly not given up hope and will fight all the way.

"We've had good results in the last two matches and I think it has given everybody at the club a lift."

Saturday's thriller at Jenner Park saw nine goals, two penalties and a red card.

The match-winning goal came in the eighth minute of injury time as Barry's Luke Sherbon scored from the penalty spot to give the Dragons their first league victory of the season.

Director of football, Colin Addison, included all three of his new signings in the starting line-up, goalkeeper Danny Brimble signed from Cardiff City and defender Steve Williams and midfielder Jamie Michael, both from Newport.

Addison said: "In addition to the people we've brought in, we'll be looking to freshen the squad up again.

"Steve Williams is a player we'd like to keep and I'll be talking to Peter Nicholas about him."

Gavin Allen put the Dragons into a ninth-minute lead.

Barry doubled their lead soon after when a Mark Duckett cross from the left was driven home by Gareth Elliott.

However, there was no time for celebrations from the Barry players as Welshpool quickly got back into the game courtesy of a Steve Rogers goal after 20 minutes.

The visitors could have levelled before half-time through teenage danger-man Christian Courtney, but his close range shot was saved by debutant Brimble.

Ten minutes after the break, Gavin Allen latched onto a throw from Duckett to fire past Goodwin and make it 3-1 and on the hour mark it was Duckett himself on the scoresheet, picking up a Luke Sherbon pass and lashing it past the keeper to make it 4-1.

Welshpool began to claw their way back into the game though, with Courtney out-running the Barry defence to make it 4-2 and then a harshly awarded penalty against Duckett for handball gave Steve Rogers the opportunity to make it 4-3 with 15 minutes to play.

The game was in injury time when Welshpool levelled to make it 4-4 when Barry were unable to deal with a free-kick and it ended in the back of the net to the joy of the visitors.

But the game wasn't over and deep into injury time Barry continued to attack. A late free-kick seemed to have been cleared, but the assistant referee kept his flag raised and, after discussions with the referee, Welshpool's Chris Roberts was red-carded for handball in the area and Barry were awarded a penalty.

It came down to Luke Sherbon, the youngest player on the pitch, to take the spot kick, but he showed no nerves as he drilled the ball to Goodwin's right while the keeper dived in the opposite direction, leading to celebrations on the pitch and touchline.