West End 2 Monmouth Town 4

Monmouth Town secured their first win of their Welsh League Division One campaign with an improved display at Swansea based West End FC last Saturday. Although the Kingfishers were still not at their most fluent, there was far more fight and desire applied to the performance after the disappointing loss in midweek to Cwmbran Celtic.

Barry Burns made a number of changes to the side that lost by replacing striker Matthew Bowen with Tom Maxted and reshuffling his back four by bringing in Dean Palmer for the injured Ashley Ford and swapping Aaron Davies and Dan Spence from their usual centre back and full back roles in order to give the defence a more natural balance.

On twenty minutes, the Kingfishers lost skipper Smith due to a thigh strain and he was replaced by 18 year old Max Fessey in the centre of the park. The break through came slightly against the run of play when a Blackburn kick down field evaded everyone apart from Dan Macdonald and the former Aston Villa forward finished with aplomb into the top corner.

This stunned the hosts and the Town started to look more assured in possession and were able to get the dangerous Macdonald more into the game.

On 41 minutes, the Town doubled their lead from an unlikely source. Left back Dan Spence delivered a dangerous looking cross that Tom Maxted just failed to get on the end of but the ball bounced and found its way into the far corner of the goal.

The start of the second period started slowly as the Town ensured that they played effective football on order to protect their lead. Elliot Ford and Sam Palmer were both looking dangerous when the Kingfishers broke from any home attack.

The whole shape and game plan looked more assured and Blackburn was rarely called upon to make any saves of note. Jacob Guy crashed a header against the bar and Ford missed a golden opportunity from a Maxted cross before the Town thought they had made the game safe when Rob Laurie ghosted into the box to head home unmarked from a Maxted long throw with just 17 minutes remaining.

The Town, however, never seem to do things the easy way and allowed the home side back into the game, albeit from a generous looking penalty kick given for a Laurie handball. Just four minutes later the home side scored again.

A long ball from the back caught Guy off guard to allow the centre forward in on goal and fire past Blackburn with 12 minutes remaining. The panic, luckily didn't settle in for long as Macdonald settled the visiting supporters nerves with his second goal of the game, as he fired into the far corner.

Monmouth face their toughest test yet next Saturday when they make the long trip West to former Welsh Premier League side Haverfordwest County, kick off 2.30pm