Town Through to Round 3

Holywell’s confident and patient approach to this potential banana skin at Glantraeth, eventually paid dividends as the Wellmen advanced into round 3 of the FAW Trophy.

There was always a feeling about this one that floodgates could open once a chance had been converted, and patient Holywell had to be, as Danny Sullivan’s opener didn’t come until the 67th minutes. Sullivan went up with the home keeper for a cross from Steve Thomas’ quickly taken free kick, and, was first to react to poke home as the ball dropped under the crossbar.

Those floodgates may well have opened up much earlier as they had in the league encounter at Halkyn Road 3 weeks earlier, has Steve Thomas been able to convert a chance carved out of the first half dozen touches of the ball in the game, but he pulled his shot to the left of the upright.

That set the tone for much of the opening 30 mins, with Town’s best efforts coming from Sullivan & the hard working Ian Griffiths, who had a neat lobbed effort ruled out for a somewhat suspect offside flag. There were also loud shouts for a penalty as Thomas went down under a clumsy challenge.

Glantraeth were mostly held at arms length by a well marshalled Town defence, with Ashley Durham (pictured) outstanding, but when they had their chances, Danny Stanton denied Tony Hughes, and Chris Evans, ensuring the break was reached goalless.

With the second half underway Sullivan finally got the breakthrough, and as the home team made some changes in an attempt to get back into it, Graeme Williams found space 30 yards out, and struck a low effort that although had the pace, really should have been kept out by home keeper Liam Shanahan.

The third was as good a passage of passing football that you’ll see this season, whether it be for 50 quid a month on Super Sunday or a few quid in the Welsh Alliance. A string of triangular passing movements across the centre of the park eventually found a pass slipped through to Thomas who made no mistake from 10 yards out.

Thomas had time to add a fourth cutting in neatly from the left flank to finish neatly, whilst Griffiths was denied the goal his work rate deserved when he attempted to lob Shanahan when through on goal, but saw the keeper push the ball around the post.