Cardiff City U18's v Merthyr Town

Martyrs 2-0 down latest on Twitter  

3-0 down - embarrassing !!

It's given as Cardiff City Under-21s rather than Under-18s on the Official website - don't know if that's correct.

Yay ! Martyrs pull a goal back through Alex Long

Merthyr Imp wrote:It's given as Cardiff City Under-21s rather than Under-18s on the Official website - don't know if that's correct.

Yes I know but Rich put it on facebook as U18's earlier today

OMG! 5-1 down - poor display

Full time 5-2 defeat for the Martyrs, don't know who scored the second goal.

First defeat in the friendlies.

You learn more from a defeat than thumping an opposition team from a lower level.....sounded like a good match to watch....shame I missed it...boz

Looking at twitter we had a full strength side out.Do not know what has gone wrong with our defence in some of the friendlys.Some cause to be concerned .time to put it right starting at port talbot who will give us a hard game..

It's been a week of contrasting games where we were bright and sharp against Penydarren but dismal and poor against Cardiff City u18s.  The difference in the opposition between the 2 games is probably fitness, skill and organisation which Cardiff had in spades.  We looked lethargic last night and maybe had the games been reversed with us playing CCFC first it might have been a different story.

At the Bont, where the facilities are excellent and the pitch superb it was a good confidence builder.  It was quite a hard and competitive game with some decent (and some not so decent) tackles being put in and some excellent goals scored with Kerry getting 2 - the first being his usual free kick, giving the keeper no chance and his second being a deflected cross coming in from the right.  Willo scored a beauty from the edge of the box with his left foot, Pross chipped the keeper well after some excellent football sent him free, Alex Long scored with a good shot, not for the first time this season, & Zak opened his account for us with a nice shot across the keeper and into the corner.  Tubbsy rose well for his header early in the 2nd half, Traylor finished well after another good passing move from us and Marcus finished off the scoring with another good shot after being set up by Trayls.  A good night all round.

Down in Treforest, Cardiff were bright, sharp and inventive - we weren't.  However their first 2 goals came as a result of defensive mistakes, one on the edge of our box and the 2nd one was Willo being robbed out on the right and the winger strode through to score easily.  Craig Morris had no chance with either goal.  We did come more into the game and did have several half chances but Cardiff scored their 3rd easily.  We made a few changes with Marcus, Scouser & Alex coming on and both had an immediate impact as they added a bit of spark to our game.  Alex scored another excellent goal when he advanced into the area on the right and sent in an excellent shot past the keeper and into the corner.  We started to play and created a few chances but the Cardiff keeper was in excellent form and kept out goal bound efforts really well and when he was beaten there were defenders around to help him out.  At this stage it looked as if we'd get something out of the game but unfortunately in an increasingly rare Cardiff attack, Gilo tried to shepherd the ball over the goal line just outside our 18 yard box but was robbed and the cross came in for a simple tap in.  Basically that was that with Cardiff scoring a 5th and Matthew did get a consolation very late in the game when he hammered home from about 4 yards after a goalmouth scramble.  A disappointing evening made even more dismal with the rain hammering down for a large portion on the game.  

2 games in 2 days is a lot to ask and we certainly weren't all that clever in the 2nd game.  However we have a few days R&R in readiness for Saturday's visit to Port Talbot and if we play somewhere close to the way we played against Carmarthen then we we should have a good afternoon.  To my mind, games against the likes of Carmarthen, Port Talbot etc are a more realistic test of our ability.