By Rhys Harrison and Luke Hawkins
USW Men’s 2nd suffered a jolt in their quest for league title glory after slipping to a 2-3 defeat to local rivals at the Sport Park.
With four wins out of their last five, USW looked to continue their hot form into this home tie against a side also coming off the back of a win.
But the loss for USW sees their advantage at the top of the BUCS Men’s Western Tier 3 reduced to three points, meaning Cardiff Met 4th could get within two points if they win their game in hand.
USW will face Cardiff again in two weeks time for their final game in the league, but first they play Bristol 4th away on February 19th.
The early stages of this match were dominated by both sides battling for control in the middle of the park.
Misplaced passes denied both USW and Cardiff in the respective final thirds, save for an audacious effort from USW striking the underside of the crossbar four minutes in.
As the game settled, Cardiff tended to hold more of the possession to play a more conservative style while USW elected to quickly move from defence to attack by attempting to play the ball behind Cardiff’s back line, USW looked more threatening early on.
Cardiff had their best chance to break the deadlock 16 minutes in as USW were caught off guard, appealing that the ball had gone out of play.
The ball was passed across the face of goal, Nico Barber failed to make contact to what would have been an easy tap-in.
USW took advantage of Cardiff’s wastefulness in front of goal three minutes later.
Their early long ball tactics paid dividends as one found Corey McCeary who beat his man and slid the ball under the Cardiff keeper to make the score 1-0.
Cardiff would be dealt an additional blow, suffering an injury in the build-up to the goal.
Both teams struggled to create chances from that point, until 40 minutes in, when the USW keeper over-extended to cover a Cardiff attack.
The ball was parried directly into the path of Josh Aspinall-Smith, who finished into the empty net.
USW responded almost instantly as another through ball cut through Cardiff’s defence. Freddie Stevens won the race for possession and in almost a mirror image of USW’s first, slid his effort under the keeper to hand his side a 2-1 lead at the interval.
As the second half developed, it was a balanced affair with the home side looking for diagonal balls over the top. But Cardiff were starting to get decent spells of possession in the USW half.
And in the 63rd minute that possession paid off as Cardiff won a free kick near the USW penalty area. Nathan Boothroyd stepped up and converted in style.
He hit the free kick hard and it dipped just under the post and into the top corner making the score 2-2.
Just four minutes later, the away side completed their stunning comeback making it 3-2. The visitors were passing well in midfield maintaining possession.
Nico Barber’s long range shot deflected off a rushing defender and looped over the keeper into the net.
In the last ten minutes, USW created chances as Cardiff became more rigid in defence and guarded their lead.
The away side saw the game out to a 3-2 victory, in what could be a crucial result in terms of the league as a whole.