Photo Gallery Match Action

Football Association of Wales
Welsh Cup Round Three
Pontardawe Town v Llandudno Town

Date 31st October 2009
Venue - The Recreation Ground, Pontardawe

Pontardawe Town
Carl Owen
Andrew Stokes

Llandudno Town

Llandudno Town had set off at 6:30am from their clubhouse and fortunately the game was able to go ahead following excellent work in poor weather by Hugh The Groundsman and his volunteers.

Pontardawe lined up with an unfamiliar backline following the withdrawal of Steven Cox through suspension. In midfield the on-loan Dale Otten, who was allowed to play by Llanelli, stood in for the experienced, but injured, club captain Jon Coates.

The game started at a frantic pace and Pontardawe took the lead with a goal from Carl Owen who finished off an excellent move after just 9 minutes. A move down the left saw a cross to Owen who beat Llandudno's keeper Paul Whitfield to immediately warm up the reasonably sized, but damp, crowd.

Llandudno dominated the play for the remainder of an entertaining first half with midfielders Gaz Evans and Neil Coverley showing well but we unable to get the equaliser they probably deserved. This was mainly due to the commitment to the cause of the Pontardawe lads especially captain Gary Taylor and, man of the match, Stuart Hoskins.

In the second half Pontardawe Town had more of the game and caused the Llandudno defence a lot more problems than in the latter part of the first half. The introduction of Andrew Stokes and Mark Nappieralla had a positive effect and on 70 minutes, after another excellent move down the left, Andrew Stokes met a great cross to put Pontardawe Town 2-0 up.

This was a great game with some excellent and committed play from both teams. Llandudno's captain Craig Hogg, together with Joe Morgan, gave 100% in some bone crunching collisions but they were met full on by the Pontardawe lads with Paul Lenihan and Richard South outstanding in defence. In midfield Stuart Hoskins was definitely the outstanding player on the park whilst Steff Davies, up front, work his socks off as usual.

Llandudno had their chances and Pontardawe were grateful for some of their wayward heading and shooting but, despite Mark Nappieralla's sending off after 95 minutes, it was Pontardawe who finished the victors and went into the draw for the 4th Round.

An excellent game played by both sides which was well managed by Jon Twigg and his officials, Bernard Coyle and David Badger. View the available highlights of the 2nd half here. (Unfortunately, the mornings very wet weather took its toll on the camera which refused to record due to moisture within it. It only decided to work after approximately 10 minutes of the second half)

Pontardawe Town : B Hopkins, A Lewis, O Williams, R South, P Lenihan, D McGrath, G Taylor (C), S Hoskins, S Davies, C Owen, D Otten, M Nappieralla (Sub), A Stokes (Sub), R Daniel (Sub - Not Used), D Thomas (Sub - Not Used), R Evans (Sub - Not Used)

Llandudno Town : P Whitfield, P Roberts, S Eardley, W Williams, C Hogg (C), J Morgan, G Evans, B Dews, L Thomas, G Peters, N Coverley, D Hughes (Sub), A Roberts (Sub), R Chesters (Sub)

Scorers : C Owen (9 mins), A Stokes (70 mins)
Sending Off : M Nappieralla (90+5 mins)

The above link will open a video of the action in WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER Ver 11. ( For Windows XP). Windows Media Player for other Windows operating systems (Windows ME, Windows 2000 etc) can be found here. Windows Vista has Media Player already built in. If you do not have Windows Media Player installed, please follow these links to download and install Windows Media Player. If anyone is using Linux as their operating system please let me know and I will test different solutions.

Some of the files are large and will stream from the server and will open in Media Player before the download completes ( if you are using Internet Explorer). If you are using Firefox as your browser the file will download completely before opening in Windows Media Player - a fast Broadband connection is always recommended. Remember to turn your speakers on. Please be patient with the larger files as they will buffer on your PC first.