Penycae Football Club C.I.C.

After another win last week against Coedpoeth, it was time for the lads to test themselves against a tougher opposition in Chirk. A couple of changes to the squad were made with Mike Parry, Josh Millington and Chris Piney out due to work commitments but coming back were Ryan Merrill and new signing Ramone Nelson. The message was to compete with chirk, show that we are improving and deserve to be in the top division. 

From the first whistle, we were right on it, pressing chirk at every opportunity and forcing errors on the back 4. Chirk were a big physical side, but we seemed right up for the battle. Our front 4 were hungry and closing down chirk and stopping them getting into a rhythm, Adam Peters and Josh Jones were solid in front of our back 4. We were on top in the early exchanges with Ben Jones and Alex Rowlands looking dangerous going forward, on 22 mins a poor throw in straight to a chirk player brought a foul out wide, this gave chirk the opportunity to load the box with big players they had, the free kick came in and the midfielder got his head on it into the bottom corner for 1-0. A bit harsh on the lads but they rolled the sleeves up and went back at chirk, James Trigg was found out wide by Alex Rowlands, he went at the defender inside the box but left the ball behind, the defender stuck his leg out and tripped James Triggs over, the referee awarded a penalty (a soft one) but a foul. Alex Rowlands stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way for 1-1. A goal we deserved and got us back into the game, we still were causing chirk problems with our high pressing and winning 2nd balls, but we couldn't muster any clear cut chances. Ht 1-1. A few words of advice at half time to warn the players that chirk would improve 2nd half and not to drop the intensity of our play. 2 mins into the half we found ourselves 2-1 down when another long ball wasn't dealt with and it fell to a chirk player who's mishit shot looped up and dropped into the net. This wasn't the start we wanted, and now knew we had to go at chirk to get back into the game. We managed to get into some good areas but our final ball was letting us down, with 10 mins to go chirk scored a 3rd goal on the counter attack, with the winger crossing for a neat finish by the striker. We still kept going and James Triggs had a shot saved by the chirk keeper, then Josh Williams was called into action twice with 2 fantastic saves that looked destined for the net. Ft 1-3. Our 1st half performance was probably the best for a long time and we competed with Chirk, we just conceded at the wrong time after half time which caught us cold. Our performances are getting better and I'm sure we will start to get the results we deserve.