On Sunday Pontardawe Town Youth faced the ‘Reds’ of Llanelli Town in round 2 of the FAW Youth Cup at Parc Ynysderw - the pitch looking in superb condition despite the heavy rains of the last two weeks. Following last years’ exit at the hands of Llanelli Town, the youth boys were keen for some sort of revenge!

On the back of our 5-1 victory last week at Llanelli in the Welsh Premier Development League Ponty started very strongly and were immediately on the front foot. Within the first 10 minutes Steff Pryce, Andzejs Dubjaga and Ryan Cole (2) all spurned excellent chances for Ponty with some outstanding team build-up play. Kai Rees in the Llanelli goal was starting how he meant to go on producing an outstanding goalkeeping display and keeping us at bay early in the game.

The important breakthrough came when Harry Booth climbed superbly to meet Ebbe Westmoreland’s excellent corner delivery - in the process Rees in the Llanelli goal mistimed his block and clattered into Booth - conceding a penalty. Andzejs, who had been superb throughout the opening 20 minutes, clinically finished the penalty kick to give us the lead.

Throughout the remainder of the first half the boys in black and white dominated against a spirited Llanelli team – the midfield of Westmoreland, Dolman and Lloyd providing the ammunition for Ryan Cole, Steff Pryce and Andzejs Dubjaga to consistently threaten the Llanelli goal. If not for Llanelli’s No.1 the game would have been out of sight in the first period but it was Callum Dolman (36 mins) with an excellent strike from outside the area who was the only player to break the Llanelli resolve before the game entered half-time.

Half time: Pontardawe Town 2 – 0 Llanelli Town

Through the 2nd period the game followed a similar pattern of a hardworking and committed Llanelli team trying to contain a very positive and expressive home side who were putting together one of their best performances of the season. With Llanelli chances very much at a premium our youth boys turned the screw with four more goals – none better than Joe Lloyd’s second of the game to make it 4-0 which involved a sweeping move starting with our keeper Dylan and finished with a superb run from full back by Ethan Davies who provided a pin point cross to find Joe to tap into an open goal.
Either side of the fourth goal, Joe had scored our third and Callum Dolman our fifth. Our last goal was scored by the outstanding Ben Webb who thoroughly deserved his first goal of the season after a performance full of intensity and attacking threat.

Final Score: Pontardawe Town 6- 0 Llanelli Town

*Update….Pontardawe Town Youth have been drawn away to Briton Ferry in the FAW Welsh Cup ‘round of 16’ - game to be played on Sunday November 24th.