Nathaniel Car Sales League Cup Round 1

Taffs Well 3 Barry Town United 1

October 18, 2014

A MUCH depleted Town made the brief trip north to Taffs Well for this first round League Cup tie and put up a gallant if ultimately unprofitable performance.

The Wellmen edged the result, winning 3-1, but for the second week running the Town fans who made up the majority of the crowd of around a hundred, were left fuming after a series of to put it mildly, brutal tackles on Barry players, went unpunished in a tense second half. But more of that later.

Town were without the services of Damon Searle (work), Geraint Frowen, James Dixon, plus youngsters Theo Richards and Brad O'Loughlin, all of whom were completing bans. On the injured list were TJ Nagi and Town Billing, while substitute Ryan Dorrian and Keir McInery were both carrying knocks and were left unused on the bench along with coach Lee Jarman and young Adam Owens.

On the plus side, regular keeper Dan Bradley returned after illness and was joined by Dale Howarth, the flying winger who has been in fine form for Barry recently.

Against this background Barry's management and players deserve great credit for standing up to some rough house tactics in the second half and as with the Llwydcoed match a week earlier, this was a pity because Taffs Well are a good footballing team, who hit Barry hard on the break.

Manager Chesterfield opted for the unusual 4-3-1-2 formation which the players adapted to pretty well though left the defence a little exposed at times.

Paul Morgan switched to left back, allowing Bobby Briers to play at right back while Ryan Evans and Lewis Cosslett occupied the central slots. Play ebbed and flowed and Tow's midfield triumvirate of Saddler, Baldock and Greening were keen to release the front three of Howarth, Hutson and Ryan James at every opportunity.

Taffs used the deceptively large slope well and took the lead following a breakaway attack on 25 minutes when Rico Zulkarnen opened the scoring. Within two minutes , Town could have fallen further behind but for the sharp eye for danger of Dan Bradley, who made two vital saves.

Town trailed 1-0 at the interval and came out with real purpose for a second half they dominated. On 52 minutes, Dale Howarth's fine shot brought the scores level. On Barry pressed and in flew the tackles and against the run of play Tyrone Topper added a second goal for the Wellmen. Topper picked up a loose ball which flat footed the Barry defence and using his extra, his shot across Dan Bradley was too accurate and gave the home team a narrow 2-1 lead.

Howarth almost levelled again with minutes, the tricky winger letting rip with a thunderous drive which crashed against the post and had it gone in, would surely have been candidate for goal of the season. Fortune in more ways than one favoured the Wellmen.

In the end Taffs Well just deserved the result but can play a lot better when ditching the strong arm stuff while the patched up Barry team did well not to rise to the bait dangled in front of them. The new formation worked quite well, the players all put in a really good shift and hopefully, with the possible exception of Rhys James, who must have been pretty bruised afterwards, no new additions to the injury list were made.

So town are out of both cups, but no points were lost and the team are now left to concentrate on improving an already good league position.

Town are at Caerleon on Saturday and return to Jenner park on November 1 when they entertain fellow promotion hopefuls Chepstow Town.

Town Goalscorer: Dale Howarth