Mathern Vagrants 1 Merthyr Tydfil 2 (From Free Press Series)

Mathern Vagrants 1 Merthyr Tydfil 2

3:10pm Monday 15th October 2012 in Sport

Welsh Veterans League Mathern Vagrants 1 Merthyr Tydfil 2

MATHERN Vagrants team opened their Welsh Veterans League campaign against Merthyr with plenty of optimism, boasting eight Welsh veteran internationals and four English internationals in their squad.

However, that optimism was short-lived when they failed to convert any of the five good chances they created in the first half.

Vagrants were playing quality football but lacked the cutting edge and that proved costly when one of Merthyr’s own Internationals, Neil Minnet, scored just before the interval.

Mathern made changes for the start of the second period and should have equalized when substitute Chris Herrin had the ball in the net within two minutes only to see his effort disallowed for a controversial offside decision.

Merthyr saw that piece of luck as their signal to go on the attack themselves and for 15 minutes they dominated.

But for some great saves by Vagrants keeper Mike Dowler and resolute defending by Chris Smith and Gary Burchill, the visitors might have increased their lead.

But Dowler was unable to save a penalty scored by ex-Welsh League top scorer Howie Bynon.

Mathern could only muster one goal in reply, scored by Carl Arthur who also missed a late chance to equalize when he broke free only to shoot just wide of the post.

Mathern manager Jim Edwards was disappointed.

“We dominated the first half and should have had the result tied up before Merthyr took the lead,” he said.