By Jake Hastings
Cardiff Met’s Joseph Dali-Kemmerys hit a hat-trick before a late strike from substitute Jeremy Agyemang sealed a 4-1 win and confirmed USW 2nds’ relegation from the Aldi Western Tier 3.
With USW sitting bottom of the table, they knew that all they needed was a point to go above Hartpury and stay up.
However, seven minutes in Met took the lead through Dali-Kemmery after a switch of play found the attacker and he fired the ball back across the goal into the bottom right corner.
USW struggled to get into the game and it quickly appeared the nerves brought on by the threat of being relegated had set in.
The pressure from Met continued and they found their second goal in the 20th minute when Dali-Kemmery received the ball on the left side of the eighteen-yard box and curled it into the far top corner leaving the USW keeper rooted to his line.
USW launch some attacks and had their first chance when they were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the Met box and midfielder Max Wells saw his curling effort hit the outside of the post.
It was 2-0 to Met at the interval but things went from bad to worse when Dali-Kemmery smashed a volley into the back of the USW net to complete his hat-trick following a counter-attack.
USW kept pushing and when they were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the Met box Wells took it quickly as the goalkeeper was still setting up his wall and slotted the ball into the empty net. The Met players protested, but the referee gave the goal.
Ten minutes later, USW were handed a lifeline when USW striker David Mensah put a low cross into the box towards Jack Woodhams who was then fouled from behind and the referee had no choice but to point to the spot.
Substitute Cameron Smith stepped up to take the penalty but his strike went just past the right-hand post keeping Met’s lead at 3-1.
Midway through the second half, USW manager Rob Bailey was forced into another change when Woodhams had to come off through injury and was replaced by Cameron Dean.
The game started to get away from USW and that was all but confirmed when Met substitute Agyemang was played through and scored with his second attempt to make it 4-1.