“It’s always nice to beat a team around you” says Sherwood after dramatic win at Ponty
Taffs Well boss Jamie Sherwood said the Wellmen are working towards winning their ‘own’ league after beating relegation rivals Pontypridd Town.
Sherwood who took over the club from Adrian Needs back in November has taken the club out of the drop zone, after a dramatic win over Pontypridd Town on Saturday.
The Rhondda Cynon-Taf side were behind at the break, but four goals in the final twenty minutes gave Sherwood’s side the victory over Pontypridd, who are now rock bottom of Division One.
“It’s always nice to beat a team around you. We talk about it in the dressing room, about winning our own league,” said Sherwood.
“I think where you find us when I took over we were bottom anyway, so every game was going to be big.
“It doesn’t matter whether if it’s a team at the top of the table or the bottom, you want to win every game of football.
“That win puts us potentially top of our league at the moment. Next week we want to consolidate that into next week’s fixture.”
Forward Jason Bertorelli had a handful of chances for Taffs Well, but his only goal was a sublime effort which left goalkeeper David Burnett static as his shot clipped off the post.
The experienced forward has now netted three times in six appearances under new boss Sherwood now.
“Berti (Jason Bertorelli) is a goalscorer. He’s got pressure on him, Connah’s come on today and he’s scored as well. That’s really good to see our strikers scoring goals.
“It shows he’s buying into everything we want him to buy into. His fitness is improving, he’s always gonna be a goalscorer. Put the ball in the box and he genuinely gets on the end of it. It’s pleasing very pleasing.”
Having had a number of opportunities in the first half, including an early strike from captain Warren Jones who hit the crossbar, The Wellmen had to be patient.
It wasn’t until the 70th minute that substitute Connah Hughes who had only been on the pitch for a few minutes drew Taffs Well level.
“That tempo and the urgency we spoke about at half-time, it was an interesting discussion at halftime.
We needed to see a reaction, we got that reaction. We changed that system slightly with two up top and put Ponty under real pressure.”
He was forced to make a number of changes today, following the absence of centre-back partnership Aaron Garrett and former Cardiff Met player Josh Barnett, as Keal’i Wong and Warren Jones lined up against Ponty forward Luke Gullick.
However, Wong was forced off in the first half due to a hamstring injury, with Lucas Thomas having to replace him.
The Taffs Well manager will now have to patch his side up for Friday’s fixture at Old Road against Briton Ferry Llansawel, who are four points ahead of the Wellmen.
“I think Keal’i has done his hamstring. I work with Keal’i every day so I think it’s gone. It’s a frustration, but we were also missing two centre half today in Josh Barnett and Aaron Garrett.
We’ve got cover and depth in the squad. There’s competition for places today, the substitutes have come on today and they’ve worked.
“Some weeks they don’t, some weeks they do. They’ve created a situation where they’ve created a game of football, so we’re really happy.”
