Afan Lido 0, Bala Town 1

In a match, played in front of the Sgorio live cameras chances were few and far between for both sides and the Lakesiders had to come up with something special to breach a resolute Lido defence. This came about in the 51st minute of the match when Mark Connolly unleashed a trademark free kick from 30 yards to seal the points.

Bala went into the match showing two changes from their previous match against Bangor, Danny Williams and Stephen Brown coming in for the injured duo of John Irving and Lee Hunt.

Bala began the game quite brightly when Chris Mason had a chance after only 90 seconds but his chance was smothered by the keeper on the 6 yard line.

A minute later Stuart Jones had a header which glanced the woodwork.

Lido´s first chance of the game came after 5 minutes when their short corner was cleared by our defence.

Bala had a penalty appeal turned down in the 8th minute when a Lido defender seemed to handle the ball in the area.

Lido were awrded a freekick which Terry McCormick managed to punch away. Bala then had a series of corners which finally resulted in Mark Jones volleying wide form the edge of the 18 yard box.

The game was very end to end and neither side taking real charge which led to limited goal scoring opportunities.

0-0 at the end of a quite unexciting half.

The second half began brighter however as Lido hit the crossbar within 2 minutes of the restart.

And then on 51 minutes came the all important goal and what a goal it was. Town were rewarded a freekick 30 yards out and Connolly stepped up to score a pearler which the keeper had no chance of stopping.

The goal kickstarted Bala which led to us having quite a few chances to extend our lead.

Connolly was on freekick duty again when he put the ball inches over and then struck a volley which went over the crossbar.

On 75 minutes the Bala defence failed to clear which let Lido´s sub Mark Jones through on goal, but thankfully he put his chance wide.

Our own Mark Jones was in action a minute later when his 20 yard volley went wide.

The final 10 minutes saw the Lakesiders pushing up looking for a second goal, and the home side trying to catch us on the counter which they nearly did on 85 minutes when Stef Edwards failed to intercept a clearance which released a Lido midfielder however Stef´s pace managed to retrive the situation as he got back to clear his lines.

Ross Jefferies and Liam Loughlin were brought on for Mason and Brown and Jefferies was immediately in the action when he intercepted a through ball from a Mike Byron clearance and went one on one with the keeper but a defender managed to come back in time to clear.

With 3 minutes added time Lido exerted constant pressure and their final throw of the dice came from a throw in which caused panic in the visiting defence but luckily for us the ball was cleared unceremoniously off the line and within a few seconds the ref blew for time.

Not the most exciting of matches but a valuable 3 points nevertheless.

Mark Connolly was awarded Sgorio´s "Seren" of the Match by Malcolm Allen.

• Tags:
• Afan Lido