A demanding and often feisty workout for the U21 against a determined Briton Ferry Llansawel of Cymru South – and in front of a very decent and appreciative crowd at Old Road.
We lined up in a familiar style: Remi Mitchell; Kai Ludvigsen, Fillip Lissah and Ben Blythe as a back 3; Azeem Abdulai pulling the strings in front; Corey Hurford and Lincoln McFayden as advanced wing backs; Tarrelle Whittaker, Josh Cotterill and Ben Lloyd pushing up in support of Josh Thomas as the single striker.
Play followed a familiar pattern: we dominated the ball, Abdulai, Cotterill, Lloyd and McFayden in particular had lots of touches, but we struggled to get Josh Thomas direct service. Ludvigsen’s shot through a crowd of players beat the goalkeeper to put us 1 up on 17 minutes. Abdulai tried his luck a couple of times from distance and Ferry were limited to a couple of breakaways.
Josh Thomas finished well on 50 minutes when a Cotterill shot fell kindly for him. At this stage, it looked as though we would go onto win comfortably with space starting to open up. The game got quite niggly, with the Ferry bench increasingly animated at any decision not going their way. Abdulai and Lloyd escaped with bookings when on another day we might have lost one or both of them. We duly managed to concede a soft penalty that gave Ferry heart. A raft of substitutions seemed to improve the home side and there were a couple of near misses, more often than not caused by our careless passing from the back.
Ferry keeper McFenton made a remarkable save to keep out Sam Leverett’s shot, then fellow substitute Kyrell Wilson restored the 2 goal lead on 78 minutes, collecting and converting a loose ball in the area from Tarrelle Whittaker’s blocked drive. Ferry managed a further consolation by getting through again a minute from time.
3-2 felt closer than it should have been, although all credit to Ferry for running things close. Abdulai and Lloyd stood out, while Whittaker also had a busy game, initially on the right side of attack then switching across to take over from McFayden after the hour mark.
Joe Thomas came on for Hurford, Leverett for McFayden, Wilson for Josh Thomas and Harry Jones for Lissah. We essentially kept the same shape throughout. It worked, with the knowledge that we lived dangerously from time and time and didn’t fully capitalise on all that possession.
Other than the tremendous range of imaginative expletives delivered by the Ferry bench, my lasting impression of the outing is that Ferry must breed their insects tough in this part of town – with swarms of flying creatures in abundance on a cool, sunny evening, I even managed to get bitten on the eyelid.
Here’s the official match report on the OS.