By Lee Clow
USW Men’s 2nd head coach James McIlvenny was pleased with his side’s performance after watching them come out victorious over Cardiff Met.
The home side made a fantastic start to the game and took a two-goal lead within the first five minutes. McIlvenny stated how important those goals were in the game.
“We started really well with high intensity, but I felt after the two goals, our players thought they already won the game and for me they stopped working, started becoming sloppy and it wasn’t until Cardiff Met got a goal back that we upped our intensity and scored the third goal,” he said.
It was a very intense game that contained many fiery moments including the dismissal of the Cardiff Met’s assistant manager.
In the second half, Cardiff Met took control of the game and started piling huge pressure onto the USW defence. The pressure soon paid off as Met scored a second making the scores 3-2. McIlvenny was worried in the second half but ultimately belied his side merited the three points.
“It was quite nerve-racking because I felt Cardiff met in the second half upped their intensity and they had nothing to lose, they threw everything at it. Their second goal was an excellent goal, and on another day, it could have been a draw, but I did feel we deserved the win today”
Having beaten their rivals, USW leapfrog Met in the table and now look towards their next game, an intense battle against Bristol. Looking at the next tie, McIlvenny feels his side still needs to work on a few things.
“There is always stuff to work on, going into the next game it’s about making sure the players stick to the game plan and their attitude to grind out the win out,” he said.
“We’re now two points in front of Cardiff Met on level games with four games to go and next week Bristol away it going to be a tough game, they are all tough games because we can’t afford to drop a point.”