Rhys Griffiths: “Penybont and I belong in Welsh Premier League.”
🏆 | After beating @UndyAFC, courtesy of a goal by Luke Borreli, @Penybont_FC were crowned CHAMPIONS of Division One. #WFL1 pic.twitter.com/sF8M4r05uL
— Y Clwb Pêl-Droed (@YClwbPelDroed) April 20, 2019
Penybont boss Rhys Griffiths says his side are deserving of Welsh Premier League football after winning the Division One title.
The Bridgend side claimed the Championship away at Undy Athletic on a sunny Saturday afternoon as they continued their fantastic season.
A majority of Griffiths’ playing career was spent in the Welsh Premier League, where he was top goal scorer of the league for seven consecutive years.
He’ll be making a return after a three-year exile. He left Aberystwyth Town to move into management with Penybont. Most recently he had been studying for his UEFA Pro Licence course.
“I belong at that level and so do all of these players,” said a passionate Griffiths.
“I belong at a level where I don’t have to worry about those kind of things (poor pitches) and that’s what the Welsh Prem is.
“When we’ve gone to difficult grounds I’ve always said to the players if you don’t want to play at grounds like this then you’ve got to win here otherwise you won’t go up.”
The 39-year-old was part of the Llanelli side which won the Welsh Premier League in 2007/2008.
However the feeling of managing your own team rather than being a player has a massive difference according to the man who can claim he has done both.
“When you do it as a player in truth there’s more than a dozen players you really care about you’re really lucky. There’s always new players you don’t get to know.
“This is my team and I love every player in there, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. All the board, it hasn’t always been easy but over the last year, our relationship has strengthened. It feels more collective.”
The task for the rest of the season now will be to go the whole season unbeaten. Penybont have played 25 games this campaign and have yet to taste defeat, winning 20 times and drawing five.
They also have a League Cup semi-final against fourth tier Ynysygerwn to look forward to.
“For a while it’s been a motivator but it flipped, we’re more worried about losing than we were the title, as we felt with all due respect we’ve had that sewn up for a while without a complete collapse.
“Now we’re in the semi’s we’ll narrow our focus and the players that got us to the semi-final of the cup deserve to take us to the final and hopefully win it.
“It’d be great to do the double but I’ve only been focused on the league.”
(Featured Image: Matthew Lofthouse)
