by Dan Cope
USW Men’s 3rd 1 – 3 Cardiff University Men’s 4th
Date: Wednesday 29th (KO 14:00)
Venue: Sport Park, Treforest
The match between USW Men’s 3rd and Cardiff University 4th was abandoned late in the second half after a Cardiff player was taken ill.
Prior to the incident, Cardiff were leading USW 1 – 3 in what had been a hard fought game. Cardiff started the match well as they piled the pressure on the USW defence, but centre backs Tom Fouracre and captain Jackson Huxley remained firm.
However, Cardiff created more chances, they broke down the left wing and a low cross was met with a close range finish from their striker to give the visitors the lead inside 10 minutes.
Things didn’t improve for USW. Despite hard work from Sam Lancey and Jake Ashley in the midfield, Cardiff still continued to dominate and doubled their lead. After another break down the flanks, Eiran Carroll was caught out and Cardiff escaped behind the USW defence to slot neatly past Danni Jones in the USW goal.
Surprisingly, USW grew in confidence and gained the upper hand after going 2-0 down. Midfield magician Iolo Ap Dafydd started to exert his strength on the ball alongside Jake Ashley whose quick feet and finesse began to hurt the Cardiff defence.
Eventually, USW pulled one back after fine work down the right side by warrior Mael Evans – in the 32th minute the ball found its way into the path of Iolo Ap Dafydd who turned and hit a thunderous strike into the bottom corner from 20 yards out. A vital goal for Rob Bailey’s side.
In the second half, USW made a few changes with Tom Fouracre moved into midfield to add more strength in the middle of the park for USW alongside Raeon Mignott, who came on for Jake Ashley at half time with the gaffer hoping to utilise his pace down the wing.
The changes seemed to lift USW who began to dominate proceedings, Mikey Wicherek and Callum Massey used their awareness and energy up front to put pressure on the Cardiff back line, who started to make mistakes as a result.
This led to chances for substitute Joe Holeman and Iolo Ap Dafydd, but they were well saved by the Cardiff goalkeeper. However, Cardiff started to grow into the half and created more chances, only for these to be snuffed out thanks to tremendous work from full-back Mael Evans who had a superb game.
That wasn’t enough however, Cardiff took advantage of poor defending yet again from USW and a tame effort saw the ball slip under the arms of keeper Danni Jones to make the score 3-1 to the visitors.
The last play of the match fell to USW. A brilliant clearance from Mael Evans allowed Mikey Wicherek to use his pace to run beyond the defence, but his chipped effort was smothered by the Cardiff goalkeeper in what was a frustrating afternoon for USW.
The game was stopped around the 80 minute mark, when a Cardiff player collapsed. The result stands, and this is how the USW 3rds Twitter account summed up the afternoon: “Closely fought game today but the result is an insignificance as a @CardiffUniFC player collapsed leading the game to be abandoned. Massive credit to both sets of players, the @USWSport first aider and the paramedics for their excellent responses. We wish him a speedy recovery!”
Star Player: Mael Evans
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