MATCH REPORT: Team Swansea 9 Grange Albion 1 (FAW Trophy Round 4)
Swansea University side Team Swansea claimed their place in the last sixteen of the FAW Trophy with an unexpectedly emphatic win over visiting Grange Albion from Cardiff.
In a game played mostly in a torrential rainstorm, the students made light of the conditions, playing some attractive football, and looked likely winners from the moment Joe Palmer volleyed their opening goal from a second minute corner. John Roberts doubled the lead three minutes later when gifted possession, as Albion’s defence struggled to cope with the pace and directness of the home side.
Team Swansea added two more first half goals – Farai Hwenga with a diving header and Ian Hughes with a classic route-one goal, although sandwiched between them a fine strike from Perry Johnson briefly reduced the deficit for the visitors.
Once Hughes had added a fifth Team Swansea goal in the first minute of the second half, Albion’s fate was sealed and the remaining 44 minutes became an exercise in damage limitation. It was only partly successful – Hughes completed a rapid hat-trick with an unstoppable shot, Jamie Noble tapped in the seventh, Joe Palmer got his second from a free-kick and John Roberts completed the rout in stoppage time. Albion had chances to get consolation goals but nothing quite came off for them. It just wasn’t the Cardiff side’s day and they exited the Trophy well beaten on the day.
