Welsh League, Division One

Monmouth Town 0

Haverfordwest County 2

A FINE and well-deserved win, on an afternoon on which Caerau Ely lost and Cardiff Met were held to a draw, saw the Bluebirds soar into a four-point lead at the top of the Welsh League table.

They might have gone ahead as early as the 12th minute when a fine move down the right by Sean Pemberton and Ricky Watts saw Watts’ cross reach Jordan Follows, who jinked past two defenders but shot over the bar. The Blues attacking continued to look promising with Watts looking dangerous in the space out wide on the large Abergavenny Thursdays pitch. Two other good chances went begging later in the first half, one for Follows and one for the Monmouth attack.

It was to be a day on which, quite uncharacteristically, Follows was unable to get his finishing right but he was instrumental in setting up the opening goal, in the 47th minute, working the ball cleverly through to Darren Griffiths for the burly striker to turn the defence and shoot in.

The pressure increased as the Bluebirds pushed for the second goal, and it came in the 67th minute when a finely-flighted corner from Jack Britton reached Nicky Palmer who was originally forced away from the goal but retrieved the ball to cross for Dale Griffiths to head in.

Inevitably, Monmouth made a strong late effort to pull the goals back, but the Blues defence, solid as ever, never looked like allowing the home side any way back in, even with the presence up front for Monmouth of celebrated attackers like Tom McDonald and Nick Harrhy. MacDonald was in fact subbed after 75 minutes, and Sam Rodon, seemingly heading everything away, stood supreme at the heart of a solid defence.

The Blues brought on all three subs in that last half-hour and there were fine performances from Jack Britton and Greg Walters. It was a very good 14-man performance and the final 2-0 scoreline simply reflected a job very well done.

Haverfordwest County: Craig Morris, Ricky Watts, Antonio Facciuto, Sam Rodon, Dale Griffiths, Sean Pemberton (Greg Walters, 60), Chris O’Sullivan, Nicky Palmer, Declan Carroll (Lewis Holder, 74), Jordan Follows, Darren Griffiths (Jack Britton, 62).

Sub not used: Dan Evans (g/k).