By Will Taylor
The University of South Wales Men 2nds side hit the visitors from the Univserity of the West of England for eight.
For such an entertaining game the start was very scrappy with each team finding it hard to get into the game, mainly due to the strong conditions of the Sports Park.
The first chance of the game went the way of USW after 11 minutes, with only UWE goalkeeper Joe Price with a spectacular save, clawing the ball out of the top corner, keeping the score level.
However, the teams weren’t level for much longer. A brilliant piece of passing play by the visitors on 20 minutes was ended by Cillian Carey tapping the ball into an empty net to make it 1-0.
Minutes later USW were level after a spectacular overhead kick from defender Joe Eggington, following a corner cleared by the UWE defence. The defender looked as shocked as his bench as he ran off celebrating.
The main talking point for USW happened on 26 minutes, as Price ran out of his net to clear before miskicking and striking USW striker Wale Ayandiran in the chest. Referee Michael Bishop chose not to send off Price, much to the fury of the USW bench.
Just minutes later UWE were ahead, with a free kick routine that found UWE left back Michael Canavan open inside the box, who calmy slotted it past a helpless Yuki Shiruzu
Towards the end of the second half there was a number of off the ball incidents, with the main one coming from a corner swung in by USW’s Barney Neilson into what looked like a clear foul in the box. However, the referee decided to make the home side retake the free kick, instead of giving what the home side felt was a clear penalty.
In one of the last actions of the first half, Carey could’ve doubled his tally for the day as he hit wide an absolute sitter on the six-yard line.
Similar to the first half, the start of the second was very scrappy with either side being able to take control of the ball, this was until a long ball forward into the box by defender Canavan was met by UWE’s Ollie Purdy, who rounded one defender and gently rolled it past Shirizu.
USW never really got going after a strong first half performance, and the 3 points were all but confirmed on 62 minutes, when a Carey Cross was once again met by Purdy at the back post, heading in from the tightest of angles putting the away side 4-1 up with half an hour to go.
Hope was not lost in the USW camp as they replied almost instantly through Adam Casswell who managed to sneak his shot under Price, leading to a very interesting third quarter of the game.
The win was however confirmed to be heading across the Severn when a wonderful run from UWE defender Sam Smith took him past four USW players before calmly finishing into the bottom corner putting the away side 5-2 up with 25 minutes to go.
In a terrible 15 minutes for the home side they found themselves losing all composure at the back, starting with Carey adding his second and UWE’s sixth after an inviting corner was tapped in by the winger.
Five minutes later it was seven after substitute Kian Meskini was in the right place at the right time to tap in after midfielder Felix Smee’s thunderbolt rebounded off the crossbar.
Ruthless UWE had their eighth after Felix again slammed the ball towards the top corner only for a stunning save from Shiruzu denying him, the ball however was not cleared and crossed back in for Felix to finally get his goal and this time bettering Shiruzu.