Girls (u16’s) Welsh Cup Quarter Final
Bethel 1 Newcastle Emlyn 3
Newcastle Emlyn Girls pulled off a great win against the odds to reach the semi final of the U16’s Welsh Cup on the weekend.
The Reds made the long journey north to play Bethel Girls with just ten players due to players not being able to make the trek up to North Wales but they did not let this bother them one bit and put in a performance to make their club proud.
Emlyn who were strangely not allowed to enter the West Wales Women and Girls League this season due to their geographic location despite being one of the most dominating teams around have been forced to scratch around to find teams to play this term.
However spirits were high during the bus journey up to the neutral ground at Bala and their opponents who fielded a full strength squad of fifteen players were suitable buoyed by the fact that the reds were a player short.
From the first whistle Bethel pressed and closed Emlyn down not allowing them to settle on the ball in a frantic 25 minutes and they went 1-0 up and pushed hard for a second to kill the game. However the reds continued to soak up the pressure with the central midfield pairing of Nieve Jenkins and Lani Hogben starting to find pockets of space and just before half time Emlyn managed to get a goal back with a neat finish from Jenkins after a goal mouth scramble.
Bethel who made a few changes at the break pushed hard once again, but a solid and well organised performance from the back three of Bex Plowright, Lauren Jones and Pip Richards made it hard for Bethel to have any clear cut chances. Whenever they did, goalkeeper Saran Jones was on hand to deal with the threat and a big turning point came in the 50th minute when a great challenge in the box by centre back Lauren Jones on the Bethel striker as she was about to pounce saved a certain goal.
This seemed to inspire the reds and they took the lead on the hour when the ball dropped to Flavia Jenkins on the half volley and she powered the ball past the Bethel keeper from the edge of the box to make it 2-1 to Emlyn,.
Bethel made their remaining changes after this and made it hard for Emlyn to continue to play the ball forward and find any space but some neat work from striker Cara Currado on the edge of the box when she managed to free herself from the Bethel defenders saw her fire home to put her side 3-1 up.
The Ceredigion girls managed to see the remainder of the game out by dropping midfielder Lani Hogben back into defence to help with the final onslaught from Bethel and they were able to hang on until the final whistle.
Speaking after the game manager Dylan Jones said:” I can’t praise the team enough after this result Bethel were a very good and well organised team but the spirit we showed to get back into the game and push on to get the win was great with each and every player giving nothing less than 100%,
“Now the hard work starts for us with the semi final next up but it is really not fair for our girls to be playing with 9 or 10 players every week especially in the biggest cup competition in the country and I just hope we can manage to recruit a few new faces to the team.
“After losing in the final of this cup last season the experience gained by the players involved was amazing and I don’t think the girls will appreciate what they experienced last season until they are much older.
“We now await the results from the other quarter finals to see who we will play in the semi final and can hopefully get a squad of a minimum of eleven..
“We still have time for players to sign for us so if you would like to give football a go please get in touch with the club.
