Glamorgan Grab Last Gasp Winner Against Firsts

On a windy afternoon the Cons and Glamorgan AFC locked horns in consecutive games in the Cardiff Combination Premier Division.

Hit by a number of injuries and absentees the Cons were only able field a substitute goal keeper on the bench.

Due to the late withdrawal of the allocated referee, the home side provided a replacement to enable the game to proceed.

After a scrappy opening quarter, it was the home side who took the lead on 24 minutes when debutant keeper, Matthew Jones, spilled a free kick and Glamorgan were able to force the ball home from the rebound.

The Cons midfield were struggling to cope with the wind and sloping pitch, which was forcing a lot of the play towards their right hand side, and the whole team was guilty of giving the ball away in good areas, whilst in possession. Just before the break a James Hinder through ball down the inside right channel set striker, Rob Condliffe, free to run onto and lob the ball over the advancing keeper to bring the scores level at half time.

The second period was only 2 minutes old when a Glamorgan cross from the right was fired home with a first time shot, and this was followed up 5 minutes later with a carbon copy goal except this time it was from the left hand side.

With no replacements available, the away side were unable to make any changes in personnel to try and change the game, but they did alter their formation by moving right side defender, Dan Walsh, into a 5 man midfield, with Dan Alexander joining Condliffe and Jon Counsell up front.

On 70 minutes Alec Stevens cushioned a header into the path of Counsell who fired home a fierce shot from 25 yards out to reduce the deficit, and bring him his 12th of the season.

This was the start of a busy last quarter of an hour, as the the home side soon recovered their 2 goal cushion when a free kick was saved by Jones, but the rebound was fired home from close range. A minute later the hard working Sion Morris played a fine ball over the Glamorgan back line for Condliffe to run onto from wide on the right, where he was able to take the ball in his stride and lift the ball over the keeper and see the ball hit the net just under the crossbar.

With 5 minutes left to play, the alert Hinder took a quick free kick for Condliffe to latch onto and round the goal keeper to his left. He seemed to have knocked the ball to far, but was able to gather it very close to the goal post and bye line and control it before rounding the post and rolling the ball home, to bring up his third hat trick of the season. The home side were convinced that the ball had gone dead, but the referee appeared to have not seen the situation and gave the goal.

With the scores level and the game well into injury time, Glamorgan won a corner on the right hand side. The cross was headed against the post and the referee appeared to signal a goal, even though the ball hadn't crossed the line, just before the rebound was fired home to confirm the goal and the win.

After the game Cons Team Manager, Tom Mouncher, stated that he was stepping down from the role.