Bala Town 0, The New Saints 1: Saints return to top of the table
The New Saints moved to the top of the Cymru Premier with a 1-0 victory over Bala Town at Maes Tegid.
Ryan Brobbel’s sixth-minute effort ushered in a new era for The Saints as Anthony Limbrick made a winning start to life with the Oswestry side.
TNS made the most of Connah’s Quay’s slip-up earlier in the day by moving to the top of the league on the virtue of goal difference.
From the outset, the visitors were eager to impress their new head coach Anthony Limbrick and almost taking an early lead when Jon Routledge’s teasing ball into the box met Adam Roscrow who headed the ball over the crossbar from six yards.
The Saints were seeing plenty of the ball in the opening stages and took advantage of their dominant possession five minutes into the half as they went ahead. Adrian Cieslewicz’s delivery into the area wasn’t dealt with by the Lakesiders and found Routledge who fired straight at Alex Ramsay but the ball was palmed straight into the path of the unmarked Ryan Brobble to blast into the roof of the net.
The influencial Cieslewicz almost doubled their tally straight after the restart as he met Roscrow’s brilliant ball into the six yard box but the chance went begging past the far post before Ben Clark pounced on a Jonny Spittle mistake to force a save out of Ramsay.
Yellow cards were shown to Bala’s Anthony Kay and Adrian Cieslewicz for respective fouls and Bala looked to claw themselves into the match.
After twenty five minutes of dominance by the visitors, Bala seemed to come back into the half with Ryan Pryce dancing into the box but no Town shirt to meet his ball in which allowed Paul Harrison to collect in the Saints net.
A series of corners fell to the hosts with Hudson and Spender called into action prior to Chris Venables, Antony Kay and Will Evans combining but unable to capitalise on their move down the left hand side.
Jack Mackreth was picked out by Evans but saw his delivery cleared by the visitors’ backline followed by Steve Leslie doing some excellent work in midfield and driving forward with Mackreth for the final ball to be lacking five minutes from the interval.
Before the break, Cieslewicz who had a superb half of football saw his 18 yard strike pushed around the post by Ramsay with Limbrick’s men taking a 0-1 lead into the break.
The second half saw Bala begin the half much brighter with the home side taking a hold of the early proceedings.
Paul Harrison was forced to deny Evans’ eighteen yard low drive from the edge of the box before Evans connected to a ball in from the left but Hudson was able to clear the danger.
Goalkeeper Ramsay made three superb saves before the hour mark denying Brobble’s spectacular half volley, Roscrow with his feet and then palming out Simon Spender’s floating cross to keep the score at 0-1.
Changes for both outfits saw Leo Smith and Jamie Mullan replacing Clark and Brobble with Kieran Smith, Raul Correia and Henry Jones replacing Mackreth, Mendes and Evans with both sides looking to freshen things up midway through the second period.
Town captain Chris Venables had a golden opportunity in the 73rd minute when his powerful right foot, outside of the boot volley flashed across the face of goal which should’ve seen the Lakesiders level.
Further substitutes saw Nathan Peate and Liam Davies introduced for Bala meanwhile Greg Draper came on for Adam Roscrow.
The game opened up in the final ten minutes with Bala looking to level and Saints wanting to go further ahead but both defences were resilient with last ditch clearances.
In additional time two fantastic efforts fell to the home side which should’ve seen Colin Caton’s men go level. Firstly Raul Correia set himself up with an impressive overhead kick which landed on the roof of the net from six yards out followed by Chris Venables shot blazing across the face of goal in the final minute.
