Radstock v MERTHYR

Updates here (hpefully!)

Perry, m griff, a griff, tubbs, welsh, j thomas, hartshorn, greening, prosser, leek, dorrian. Subs harris, ley, newman, traylor, howe.

1 up Troy Greening 28mins. Decent cut back by Prosser; good finish

Martyrs 1-0 up, Troy Greening.

h/t 1 up!

1-0 up Half-Time

well done guys, keep me updated

2 up Hartshorn 74mins

get in

And Traylor makes it 3 with minutes to go!

well done, i got to shoot off now, before final whistle

3 nil
da iawn,

lets go and get promotoed shal we

A good 3-0 win away from home, hope other results go our way today.

F/t 0-3. Good win!

With several teams involved in the Vase, Merthyr are now 6th in the table, 14 points behind Willand with 4 games in hand and 6 points behind Larkhall with just 1 game in hand!

A game that needed to be won, and a decent scoreline against a side near the bottom of the table, so there can't be any complaints today.

Been trying to work out the formation - did Lee Hartshorn play right back? Or was it 3 centre backs, with Marcus Griffiths at right wing back? Either way, presumably Jason Welsh played up front?

Merthyr now have to depend on the top two sides dropping points. And Willand v Merthyr on December 17 will be very important for both clubs.
I was wondering about the formation. Was Prosser a lone striker? I wondered if we played four central defenders!! It looked a very defensive side and we kept a clean sheet, for the second successive game, and netting three at the same time.
A win was needed against a lowly Radstock and that was the outcome.
Ilfracombe home next Saturday! We could do with another good attendance but the trouble is that Christmas always comes at a time when the shops are at their busiest!!!

A small pitch with a poor playing surface and was very sticky after the rain. Taking that into account we didn't play a lot of football today which is understandable.

We played 3 at the back with Tubbsy, Welshy & Jamie Thomas and Marcus wide on the right and Alun Griffiths on the left. Archie played in front of the back 3 with Dozza & Leekie ahead of him and Troy joining Pross up front whenever he could. It was obviously a team picked for the conditions and proved to be the right decision made by Garry & Danny. For the 1st goal Marcus found Pross near the goal line and he did very well to cut it across to Troy who was near post in the 6 yard box to slam it past the keeper. We had a couple of other chances in the 1st half and although Radstock had a bit of the ball they rarely threatened although a couple of our players were threatened by assaults by the Radstock #6. Naturally he wasn't booked but Alun was for a fairly inoccuous challenge near the touchline.

The second half followed a similar fashion - Marcus hit the post with a good shot and then Archie made it safe when the keeper allowed the ball to escape his grasp and Archie was on hand to sidefoot the ball home. We made 3 substitutions - Traylor for Greening, Jack for Alun & Ryan Newman for Leekie. Just before the end Traylor was put through by Newman (I think) and he beat the keeper easily from about 15 yards.

A well deserved victory in poor conditions with a referee who has taken the title of the biggest homer I've ever seen. Poor would be a kind description and he did everything he could to stop us winning letting often dangerous challenges by Radstock go relatively unpunished when blowing up for every challenge we seemed to make. We picked the right team for today and Garry & Danny deserve credit for that and didn't allow us to be bullied as has happened in certain games this season. I thought Tubbsy was excellent today, didn't put a foot or a head wrong and was my MOTM.

Thanks for the report.

Interesting to see if we play that formation against Ilfracombe next Saturday, but it sounds like the sort of team that would be picked for the match away to Willand - although Steve Williams will be available then of course.

The pitch and the general state of the ground were appalling, PREMIER division Western League what a joke, small Merthyr fan bitten by dog no joke, 5min wait for kettle to boil for cup of tea and still cold what a joke, homer referee no joke 3 points good day out.

Because of the facilities we have enjoyed at Merthyr in the Conference and Southern League, the contrast is noticeable at away games.
Merthyr Tydfil were once just a step away from the Football League but the teams we play now are playing at their highest level and many have come from minor county leagues.
Even the Western League Premier Division is only at Step Five in the pyramid and by and large, we can only expect the sort of facilities found at Macwhirter Welsh League Division One clubs.
Western League clubs, like Merthyr, rely on dedicated volunteers and i am sure they do their best.
It's just that at Merthyr we notice the difference!

While i except we enjoy good facities at Pendarren Park so do many Western League clubs allbe it on a smaller scale but Radstock was very poor and i would say they would struggle to get in some County Leagues, i know how hard it is to run a football club and i would not knock the dedicated volunteers who run them but in this day and age one expects better.

Unfortunately, we are where we are but hopefully through the leadership of the Trust and Team Management we will eventually regain our Southern League status.

To continue to improve the club it's really important that as many supporters as possible join the Trust. If you are not currently a member please make sure that you join as soon as possible.

Awful game, but it was great to get back to winning ways, scoring three goals.On reflection it was probably the right line-up for the conditions although I would have liked to see Welshy up front for some continuity. Good news for next Saturday is that Ilfracombe have to go to Larkhall on Wednesday which along with jet-lag will hopefully tire them out!

Taken from the Radstock website -

"If Radstock could cut out individual errors then they would have pushed their promotion chasing visitors all the way.
Unfortunately they couldn't and slipped to yet another defeat and now find themselves well and truly in a relegation battle! The home side could have been two up before Merthyr got going but Tom Piotrowski's header was cleared off the line and visiting keeper Perry made a great save to keep out a Caslake free kick. On the half hour Radstock failed to clear their lines and despite having two defenders and the keeper in attendance Greening was able to get to the ball first and score at the near post. Plummer was causing the visiting defenders all sorts of problems and he managed to get a couple of efforts on goal that gave the home support optimism for the second half. Jamie Mines twice had headers saved and Barry Sandquest shot wide before an error by Stevens in the home goal gave Hartshorn the easiest of chances to score. The third goal came just before the end when another defensive error allowed Taylor in to score with ease".

The last sentence is mostly accurate except for the fact it was an excellent through ball by Ryan Newman and a great finish by Traylor!

I would like to alter quite a few points in this report too.

Joe fielded a few weak long range efforts with ease, one of which was so easy it almost resulted in the ball slipping out of his grasp and rolling in the net, but it got stuck in the glue pot of an area with no home forward within 100 yards to get anywhere near scoring.

Joe did make one decent stop midway through the 1st half, but I would have been disappointed not have seen him make the save and it was only a tad above regulation.

Plenty of late challenges, long hopefully balls up to the top and wayward shots was pritty much all that Radstock mustered, although they did have the better of the opening 10 minutes or so.

By no means were we at our best, but we looked solid, dogged, 3-0, clean sheet away from home, pritty much sums the whole story up really.

If Radstock finish outside the bottom half I will be extremley suprised.