Conwy United v Llandudno Junction F.C
16th February 2008

After a good performance last week the lads were in confident mood for our trip over the murky water. This week saw another two very well attended training sessions which the lads seemed to enjoy even the lonely hearts on Valentines night felt the love. Winning last week brought back a big boost to the squad which was very much needed, with Neil Poynton away this week we brought Ross Stevens into the squad from the reserves who has been excellent his season, so the full squad this week was as follows:-

Rob Jones

Tony Priestley, Ben Thomas MOM, Darrel Jones, Dwyfor Williams

John Paul Colville, Nathan Jones, Steve Priestley, John Blundell.

Ross Stevens, Bobby Colville 1.

James Hobson, Neil Picton, Tom Roberts, Mike Williams, Joey Welsh.

This week both teams met in the Mally before their tricky away games, the pleasing thing to see today was all the lads mixing together without a divide and both squads wishing each other well. With the new fine system in place Dwyfor was keen to check the time as we approached the agreed meeting time, with Darryl, The Priestley brothers and Rob no where to be seen the £ signs were flickering in Dwyfor’s eyes, another easy £4 to the kitty. Now as all the squad were together we set off, over the water to the impressive set up that is home to the Mussel men, the facilities are the envy of most, good sized dressing rooms, a club house, covered seating areas, not a bad playing surface and a good team who are doing really well this season. Barry has put together a good blend of talent with experience and youth being the key ingredients today we brought the extra spice that is essential for any derby, PRIDE. In certain areas of North Wales we were written off before a ball had been kicked and all the talk locally was how Conwy would humiliate us, with this clearly in the player’s minds we took the negative and turned it into a positive.

For the second week running we were greeted by the sunshine which has now replaced the storm clouds that seems to have been hovering over LL31 for sometime now, the sun was that warm we found Crouchy, Hobbo, Judas and Mike finding shelter in the shadow of the main stand as they had forgotten to apply their sunscreen we managed to drag them away from the shelter and we put the lads through their warm up routine which consisted of some ball work, stretches, running and some heading which even Natty enjoyed. derby day is usually the toughest game of any season regardless of league position and as the game kicked off you could sense something special in the air. We immediately got Ross into the game with a good ball forward which he ran onto but as he challenged the keeper he was clattered and smashed in the face which left a slight lump below his eye. A bizarre incident occurred in the 8th minute when a fair challenge between John Blundell and Leigh Craven was deemed has a foul, which at first was awarded to us them after and shout from Conwy’s bench the kick was given in their favour of them!
The football was played in the middle of the park with neither team making the goalkeeper work to hard, after a good passage of in the middle Swampy found Ross with a great ball who controlled well and turned his marker well but put too much on the pass to John Paul. Swampy was playing well and again in the centre circle he won the ball which he laid off to Tony who passed to Natty who played a good one two with Ross but was denied a goal scoring opportunity when he was tackled by Steve Roberts. We applied good pressure all over the park this was rewarded when Swampy drilled in a fantastic shot which their keeper did very well to save. We were winning everything, the ariel battle was won by Crouchy who was immense Swampy won virtually every tackle he went for and the hunger from the team was great has they hunted down everything and when we managed to win the ball we played some good stuff and in the 19th minute we put Ross through on goal but he was unlucky not to score mainly down to the pressure Steve Roberts put on him. Conwy then created probably their first real opportunity with some good football but this was soon blocked off by Darrel who was once again very commanding at the back.
Once again we saw an unsavoury moment when Cassidy launched Natty into the air and he was lucky not to see red and get away with just a yellow, and this seemed to be the theme from Conwy as we were now 32 minutes into the game and they hadn’t had it their way so they were getting frustrated and some of the tackles were getting very naughty, thankfully after some treatment Natty was up on his feet and chasing down everything and when he passed a good ball to Dwyfor out on the left he started a great piece of play as Dwyfor played a one two around their midfielder and delivered a perfect ball onto Bobby’s head which thundered goal wards but was denied by their keeper. You wouldn’t have thought Ross was making his debut for the First team as he was very good closing down defenders chasing lost causes and his overall play was very confident on one occasion he chased down the right to put pressure on their left back which forced him into hurrying his clearance and he put it out for a throw in, which Ross took and found John Blundell who struck the ball well but just off target. As the minutes ticked over the 45 minute mark Conwy sprung an attack which we failed to defend and Cassidy fired home to make it 1-0 and bring an end to a half that we dominated and Conwy found difficult to deal with, this forced Conwy’s management team to change their formation and players positions on several occasions.
The goal obviously knocked our pride a lot as we felt we had done enough to go in level, the dressing room was a lively place and frustrations were close to boiling over we managed to calm it down and raise the team again to go and do exactly what we had done in the first half and this time get something out of the game. Almost immediately Conwy attacked after some good pressure which released Cassidy for a one on one opportunity with Rob who stood up well and Cassidy scooped his shot way, way over which was followed up by the customary look at the ground looking for the divot. This was a scare that we got away with and with this behind us we forced the play again and were awarded a free kick on the left hand side which Dwyfor whipped in with some pace and Darrel headed just wide. When we didn’t have the ball we were very good at putting pressure on and regaining possession and with the attitude right we manage to win a corner which was delivered into the box and fell to John Blundell who saw his bicycle kick fly over the bar. For once in the game we switched off and Conwy took a quick throw in which Cassidy controlled and held off Darrel with good strength and was unlucky with his shot. In the 70th minute we got our goal when we applied good pressure again and Bobby superbly lobbed the keeper to make it 1-1.
This sparked Conwy into life, and after a good bit of passing play by the home side saw them go close when one of their players turned well in the box but thankfully screwed his shot wide of the upright. Another set piece saw Crouchy just head wide, which was a shame as his performance deserved a goal. We introduced James Hobson for John Paul, and then Mike Williams and Neil Picton came on for John Blundell and goal scorer Bobby Colville who had both taken knocks in a very competitive derby.
As time ticked on and on we didn’t think the referee would ever blow the final whistle as he played over five minutes injury time, but when he did the lads felt this point was a good result when most around them including the management team of Conwy thought we had deserved to win the game.

Another good performance with some fantastic individual performances but overall a great team effort and another point from a difficult game