Clevedon v MERTHYR

Martyrs maintain unbeaten start with win at Clevedon
South Wales Echo

MERTHYR maintained their unbeaten start to the league season with a deserved victory at near neighbours Clevedon. Martyrs Manager Garry Shephard gave a debut to new striker Gary Preen who joined from Salisbury earlier this week, and he fitted in to a free flowing Merthyr attack with ease.

After Andrew Thomas had forced a fine save from Dylan Castanheira after three minutes he was unable to keep out Jamie Rewbury‘s strong header two minutes later as Merthyr deservedly went ahead.

Giani Kapika forced a fine save from Merthyr’s Giles Cutlan midway through the first half while Ian Traylor almost doubled his sides lead when his shot from eight yards was blocked.

Merthyr continued to play some delightful football at times and it came as no surprise when Gary Colbourne headed home a Matty Harris cross on 66 mins to put them two goals to the good.

A slip up by Cutlan five minutes later allowed Kapika to fire in from 18 yards but it was Merthyr who continued to threaten in the latter stages.

The Martyrs were unable to add to their tally but comfortably held on for the three points.

We played well last night. We played with a back 3 with Willo on the right & Matthew on the left as wingbacks. Nathan played just in front and Leekie & Newman further forward to support Preen & Traylor up front. We immediately put Clevedon on the back foot and Rewbs opened the scoring with a superb power header from about 12 yards which fizzed past the keeper and a defender on the line. For the rest of the half we dominated with Clevedon playing on the break with Preen & Traylor prominent but we didn't wotk the keeper too much Gilo had one save of note to make.

We started where we left off in the 2nd half and it was no suprise when Colborne scored with a cracking header again from an excellent cross by Matthew Harris after a corner was partially cleared to our right wing. There was quite a long delay in the 2nd half when part of the goal net at the Clevedon end became detached from the bar. The officials didn't seem interested until the Merthyr fans behind the goal pointed it out. In the end the keeper fixed it using tape. We were coasting and then Giles made a mistake when instead of clearing a ball into row Z decided to be a bit clever and was robbed. Whilst Gilo tried to scamper back into his goal the ball was passed in and a shot went in off Tubbsy who was desperately trying to keep it out but couldn't. As a result Clevedon did press a lot more towards the end but didn't really cause us too many problems.

A well deserved win and Preen fitted in well with our style of play. Nathan Davies had an excellent game in the middle, delivering some good passes and making a few crunching tackles and was marginally my MOTM, although the whole team played well.

This was a great performance from our heroes-the midfield chased around, and won every ball, and the one- touch passing was absolutely brilliant. Well done lads!