Nash injury-time hat-trick saves Barry Town's blushes (From Barry And District News)

Nash injury-time hat-trick saves Barry Town's blushes

WELSH LEAGUE - DIVISION 1

GARW ATH 2 Barry Town 4

A LAST-MINUTE and injury time hat-trick spared Barry Town's blushes in this hard-fought encounter.

Garw have been threatened with relegation almost since the beginning of the season it seems, and they've rarely been out of the bottom two.

This defeat virtually condemned the Pontycymmer team to Division Two football next season, but for almost 80 minutes of the game they played with as much fight and passion, and not a little skill at times, as we've seen from teams of so-called higher calibre.

Indeed, were it not for the tremendous solo efforts of teenager Sean Nash, then Barry Town would have almost certainly lost this match.

Blandy Park offers some spectacular views of the football, high above the pitch, but unfortunately this same view can also highlight the inadequacies in the Barry defence.

And so it proved 20 minutes into the match when Garw's Ryan Day latched onto a weak Barry clearance, and clattered the ball into the top left hand corner of the goal, with Ian Sutton left standing in the goalmouth, open mouthed.

It was the first goal Garw had scored in a couple of months of football, and the players and supporters were suitably impressed.

It was a marginally improved Barry performance in the second half, but passing to feet was still proving to be the biggest downfall.

Suddenly, though, Sean Nash valiantly battled to get a loose ball on the Garw byline and pulled off a tremendous pivot to make space for a pinpoint cross into the box that team-mate Rhys Attley eagerly put away.

With this equaliser you felt Barry would now dominate the rest of the half, but it wasn't as easy as that.

Breaking swiftly, Garw got what they deserved when a fierce shot crashed off the underside of the bar and in. Barry were losing this match, and it wasn't pretty.

As the minutes ticked by, Garw thought they'd sealed the points when they somehow stole a second goal, but Barry's blushes were saved by the referee's assistant who had flagged for a foul.

There then followed the most dramatic period of football I've seen at a Barry game since that 5-4 win over Welshpool last season.

With minutes remaining, Sean Nash, who had done so well in setting up the first goal, simply went into overdrive and managed to score a hat-trick within a four minute spell - the second and third goals deep into injury time.

Somehow, Barry had managed to win 4-2.

WELSH LEAGUE

DIVISION 1

BARRY TOWN 1 SKEWEN ATHLETIC 1

This was a far more accomplished performance from Barry against a side that's been up with the best teams in the league all season - Barry were more than a match for them at times.

As it was, the deadlock was broken on the hour mark after some clever interplay between Attley and Lee Piotrowski in the Skewen penalty box, Piotrowski fired home from close range to send the Dragons into a creditable lead.

It didn't last though, as Skewen immediately from the kick-off forced Sutton to pull off two incredible saves at close range and send the ball out for a corner.

Unfortunately, the resulting corner ended in another melee and Fairbairn planted the ball into the back of the Barry net.

Both teams had half-chances as the minutes ticked by, and Skewen could have stolen it at the death.

This was a decent performance by Barry Town - and one of the best at Treforest - and the lads can be proud of their achievements against a top five side.

* Tuesday night's game against Ely Rangers was called off for a second time, and will have to be re-arranged. Barry now face Bridgend Town away on Friday night.