Presteigne St Andrews seriously rattled the Spar Mid Wales, second-division leaders Berriew in their league meeting at Llanandras Park on Wednesday, 23 March.
My thanks to Tom Ammonds who has come up with his thoughts on what was probably one of the side’s best performances of the season.
“This was an excellent performance by the first team in narrowly going down 2-1 to league leaders Berriew.
“Both of Berriew’s goals came in the last five minutes after Spencer Napolitano had given us a second-half lead following some brilliant work by Jamie Blythe down the left-hand side.
“This was a superb team performance in which players should not be singled out, but I thought our back four – Liam, Kai, JC and Bobby, as well as goalkeeper Simon – were excellent throughout and repelled most things Berriew threw at us.
“The midfield of Stokesy, Evsey, Owen, Jamie and Spencer worked tirelessly to cope with the movement of the Berriew midfield which was excellent all night and Duane who was upfront on his own was a willing runner all night, so praise to him also.
“All in all, I thought a draw would have been a fair result but when things are going against you this seems to happen.
“It was really great to see a positive crowd watching which certainly helps the players.
“Again, it was good to see Wyn Owen down watching and he was extremely positive about the future of the club.
“He also said Llanandras Park has to be the nicest-kept ground in any of the local leagues, which is high praise indeed for our grounds team.
“A word on the referee too, Steve Bradford – I thought he was excellent and let the game flow where he could.
“I bet there are some tired legs this morning – but we should take some heart from the fact that Berriew celebrated at the end as though they had just won a cup.”