Carmarthen Town vs Cwmbran Celtic Ladies

Match Report

We travelled to Carmarthen Town for our 2^nd Adran South league game of the season and, after taking the lead, they lost 2-1, all the goals coming in the 1^st half. Kaitlin Smith proved a handful to the Town defence from the off. She raced down the right and crossed to Fiona Anthony whose shot was straight at keeper Ashman and Kaitlin was on hand to put us ahead in the 19^th minute when she brilliantly dummied two defenders in receipt of Ellie Bidhendy’s through pass and raced on to calmly slot the ball past the keeper. Two minutes later a ball down the right from Summer Bowen-Quirk put Kaitlin clean through but Ashman made a good stop to prevent a 2^nd goal. Town had not threatened our goal but in the 41^st minute they equalised with a superb lob by Summer Evans from 25 yards out which flew past the despairing dive of Amie Preston-Roberts to nestle into the top left hand corner of the Celtic net. From the re-start Kaitlin Smith chased the ball into the Town box and fell awkwardly on the unforgiving 4G surface. It took some time to treat her and help her off the pitch. She was replaced by Alex Cridland who was straight into the action playing Fiona Anthony in who jinked past two defenders and saw her shot parried by Ashman for a corner. Then in the 8^th minute of time added on Flavia Jenkins drove into the box and placed the ball to Amie’s right into the corner of the net to give her side the lead. The 2nd half was dominated by Carmarthen who had control of the midfield. They had 5 shots on goal, 3 of which were on target but were easily dealt with by Amie. We had just one chance when Summer’s cross became a shot which was easily saved by Ashman.

We will have been disappointed at how our game fell away after having much the better of the first 40 minutes. Their cause was certainly not helped by Kaitlin having to go off. As was the case last season, this league of only 8 teams is proving to be very competitive. Macey Morris, recruited from Caldicot Town, made her debut for Celtic as a 2^nd half substitute.