Pontypridd Town 3-0 Undy Athletic: Strong second-half sees Ponty claim victory

Pontypridd secured a comfortable home win over Undy Athletic to extend their unbeaten run in the league to 11 games.

Goals from substitute Luke Gullick, Aiden Lewis and Vaughan Fowler secured the three points for Ponty as they climbed up to ninth in the JD Cymru South.

The visitors had chances early on but ultimately a poor run of form could not be stopped this evening as they slumped to sixth straight defeat.

Luke Gullick’s introduction shortly after the second half sparked the match into life and after he scored the opening goal.

The home side ran away with it, adding to their tally with a beautifully taken strike by Aiden Lewis and a bullet header by center-back Vaughan Fowler.

Undy Athletic started the match the stronger with a couple of close efforts through winger Daniel Jarman.

Firstly, a long ball forward by the goalkeeper evaded all in the Pontypridd Town backline to allow him to run through on goal, however, his effort curled agonizingly wide of the far post.

Minutes later, a low free-kick was only beaten into the direction of Jarman by Morgan Davies and his instinctive rebound cannoned off the near post.

Pontypridd Town came to life towards the end and arguably had the best chance of the half moments before half time.

A cross into the six-yard box by Abdi Noor fell nicely for Tyrelle Webbe just in front of the goal, but he was unable to get enough contact on the ball to send it towards goal.

The second half began much like the first had, with Undy Athletic pushing for the opener, without creating any clear cut chances.

Rhys Thomas had the best chance but he was unable to sort his feet out in the six-yard box to tuck home a cross from the left, and could only direct his effort into the gloves of Morgan Davies.

After three minutes of the second half, Pontypridd Town made their first change with Abdi Noor being replaced by Luke Gullick. Gullick was returning from a neck injury had ruled him out of previous matches. 

The decision to introduce Gullick sparked an upturn of momentum for the home side.

Just after the hour mark, Tyrrell Webbe found Gullick on the left-wing, and he cut inside and rifled in a curler beyond the goalkeeper high into the far corner.

Pontypridd never looked back and scored twice in quick succession with two goals in the space of four minutes in the last quarter of the match.

After a poor clearance from the Undy Athletic defence, Aiden Lewis volleyed home from ten yards with the goalkeeper rooted to the spot.

Vaughan Fowler ghosted in at the far post to power home a header from a well-worked set-piece to confirm the victory for the Dragons.

Pontypridd Town: Morgan Davies, Shane Parry, Ryan Batley, Vaughn Fowler, David Vincent, Lewis Ellis, Aiden Lewis (Kareem Leigh 88), James Bloom (C), Abdi Noor (Luke Gullick 48), Josh Maksimovic (Bo Cordle 83), Tyrrell Webbe.

Goals: Luke Gullick 65, Aiden Lewis 76, Vaughn Fowler 80′

Yellow Cards:

Pontypridd Town manager Jonathan Jones said:

“These games are always tricky,

“You look at Undy tonight. They’ve lost six games on the bounce now but you saw tonight how much they battled.

It could have gone either way in the first half.”

“We’ve played games and won 6-0 and 6-1 recently but those games were still close after 60 minutes, this division is so competitive, but we finished strong tonight and we’re happy with the points”

Undy Athletic: James Smallcombe, Jordan Rathbone, Oliver Smith, Christopher Parry (C), Adrian Evans, Kel Stevens, Christian Mbongompasi (Henry Mollard 62), Daniel Toner (Sam Richardson 81), Rhys Thomas (Matteo Goddard 88), Gareth Cullimore, Daniel Jarman.

See how the Dragons won at the Sport Park here:

(Featured Image: Darren Griffiths)