Garden Village  1
Jamie Mansell (74')

Pontyclun  0

Welsh League Division 2
Wednesday April 12th, 2006

Garden Village returned to winning ways in mid-week with a narrow win over a struggling Pontyclun side in a quiet match at Stafford Common.

The home side started brightly in the cold conditions as Ashley Richards brought a save out of the visiting goalkeeper after only 38 seconds. David Rimmer headed over the top from a corner on 7 minutes while mid-way through the half Steven Evans came close on two occasions. The tall midfielder first shot just wide of the target on 21 minutes and two minutes later was unlucky not to cap off a fine run through the ‘Clun defence with a goal as he shot low across the ‘keeper and struck the foot of the post.

Chances were few and far between for both sides at the end of the first-half and the start of the second. The match had to wait until the 66^th minute for the first real chance of the second-half when Marc Lloyd had his chance from inside the box scrambled off the line by the visiting defence, and four minutes later Ashley Richards shot over the top.

The deadlock was finally broken by Garden Village 16 minutes from time; Marc Lloyd’s corner was cleared from the box to the feet of Jamie Mansell and the former Pontardawe defender struck low through a crowd of players to find the bottom corner of the net to score his second goal of the season. Nigel Rogers could have made the points save in the very last minute when he was put through on goal by Ashley Richards but the experienced front-man struck just wide from the angle.

This victory has moved us up a place into seventh above Saturday's opponents Morriston Town - our last home match before five away trips on the bounce - with a few games in hand.

In Wednesday night's other league match second-placed ENTO Aberaman opened up a gap of six points between themselves and Garw, who occupy third spot, after a 2-0 win at Caerau (Ely).

Village: Mark Snell; Jamie Mansell, David Rimmer, David Evans; Dayle Selvage (Owen Williams 78'), Paul Bromage, Steve Bater, Steven Evans, Marc Lloyd; Nigel Rogers, Ashley Richards.

Not Used: Craig Smith, Michael Donne.