PICTURE by Wynne Evans.
TORRENTIAL rain and floods hit Anglesey this week with some parts of the Island completely covered in water. However, that wasn’t enough to put a stop to ALL of the football action as two Rowlands Tree Services Elias Cup fixtures took place!
Bodorgan’s match with Pentraeth Reserves was cancelled as was Mynydd Tigers v Caergybi and they will now be re-arranged for a different date.
Waterlogged pitches and continuous rain threatened to put an end to all football for the weekend, but it failed as Llandegfan took on Arriva Bangor and Valley Athletic hosted Bryngwran Bulls. Here’s how the four clubs got on …
Llandegfan 1 v 5 Arriva Bangor
Llandeg faced Arriva Bangor for the second time in a week and despite a much better performance from them this time around, they couldn’t avoid defeat, as the visitors ran out 5-1 winners.
The tie was very close for the first 20 minutes, with both teams going at each other to try and score that important first goal.
However, a handball on the line gave Arriva the chance to score from the spot. Scott Hughes made no mistake and put the visitors 1-0 up.
From there on out, it got worse for the home side as Ben Hulse, Liam Roberts and another Scott Hughes goal made it 4-0 at half time.
A much better and determined performance from Llandegfan in the second half saw them claw a goal back courtesy of winger Ryan Hughes.
The game was held at 4-1 until the final few minutes before Scott Hughes completed his hat-trick to make it 5-1. Heavy wind and hail towards the end of the match and some great defending ensured that no more goals were scored in this one after that.
After the match, Llandegfan FC’s player-manager, Jordan Love, praised his players for their fighting spirit.
“We can slowly see changes happening to our team.” he said.
“We are scoring more goals now and we have managed to halve the score line from the weekend before.
“We as a club have a very good relationship with Arriva Bangorand also with Llangoed, as they have both helped and supported us since we restarted the club in the summer.”
“We now go on to face valley, and we hope for another strong performance.”
Kevin Jones’ spirited Arriva Bangor side march on in the Elias Cup then, but you get the feeling that it won’t be long before we see this Llandegfan side truly click as a side and get some points.
Valley Athletic 1 v 4 Bryngwran Bulls
It was clearly a good day to be the away side on Saturday afternoon, as Bulls also took the win away at Valley, thanks to a clinical second half performance.
A hard-fought first half in the heavy wind, saw both teams struggle to take any chances and it was no surprise to see them going into the break at 0-0.
Things certainly livened up in the second half though. Manager Richard Owen made a change of formation to the Bulls (to 4-4-2) which saw them play some great attacking football.
However, it was Valley who struck first when Marc Wilson finished neatly after a great, mazy run from danger man Justin Williams.
If they thought that this would kill the visitors off however, they were certainly wrong. A 30-yard thunderbolt from in-form forward James Ryan flew past Valley goalkeeper Justin Hughes on the hour mark to make it 1-1.
Valley had the chance to regain the lead immediately after the restart but a fantastic save off Roy Sayle saw him hold on to a great effort by Mike Williams.
On 68 mins, Bulls finally took the lead when Dale Jones stepped up to a free kick and lashed home an unstoppable effort into the back of the net.
Two minutes later, James Ryan scored again. After a fantastic ball in from Iolo Jones, he flicked a header in. He then finished the game off and completed yet another hat-trick on 88 minutes with a left footed finish to the bottom corner.
Bryngwran did well to come back into this one and on the contrary to how they were last season, they fought back from a goal down. Last year, they would have crumbled.
Valley on the other hand will be left disappointed by the score line and with the Barry Rowlands’ side struggling to find enough players to make a team at the moment, their tie against Llandegfan next week could be an interesting one.
Next weekend, the Kon-X Anglesey League sides will be involved in a mixture of Cup and League action. The fixtures are as follows:
Saturday, December 2:
Lucas Oil Qualifying Round (1.30pm k.o.)
Llandegfan v Valley Athletic
Bwlch Car Boot Trophy – Group B ((2pm k.o.)
Caergybi v Pentraeth Reserves
Kon-X Anglesey League (2pm k.o.)
Arriva Bangor v Llangoed & District Reserves
Bodorgan v Bryngwran Bulls
Be sure to keep reading AFEFootbalNews to keep up to date with the latest scores and news form the Anglesey/Gwynedd based clubs!
AFEFootballNews 