Adran Trophy Final reaction as Met celebrate win over capital rivals
Ellie Preece of Cardiff Met celebrates scoring her sides third goal. Cardiff Met v Cardiff City in the Genera Adrian Trophy Final at Bryntirion Park on the 12th March 2023.
Some of Cardiff Met’s stars have reflected on their Adran Trophy triumph over Cardiff City yesterday.
The Archers inflicted City’s first defeat of the season to recapture their crown, and a number of the squad spoke with us about their victory.
Yzzy Taylor
Perhaps the most important protagonist in this victory is manager Yzzy Taylor. After a run of three defeats, where they scored none and conceded eight, Taylor made a brave decision ahead of this final in terms of her formation, which saw Met sway from their normal four at the back defence, to one with five at the back.
“We looked at the people we had available, and we know how Cardiff City have played this season. I um’d and ah’d about it all week. We’ve tried it a few times this season and we haven’t beaten City all season, so I decided to change it. We worked really hard in training on it during the week.”
And it certainly paid off for Taylor and the squad. While many wouldn’t change from the norm ahead of a big final, the decision to change will be regarded as a shrewd and brave one.
“To pull off the performance that we did, I’m so proud of the girls. It’s probably our best performance of the season. We saved it for the end in a cup final, which is fantastic, and I’m so happy.”
While Taylor should take a lot of praise, she herself heaped a lot of plaudits onto her players, who executed the plan perfectly.
“I could see that these girls wanted to work for each other and wanted to put a shift in for the badge and for the club. It shows that hard work really does pay off. I’d love to see their GPS stats from the game!”
Steph Turner
Captain Steph Turner has seen it all in her time at Cyncoed, and this may be one of her finest hours. She marshalled a great defensive display, especially while functioning in a new formation and facing some of the league’s most lethal attackers.
“We’ve only been practicing the new formation since Tuesday! I think we knew we needed to change formation with the way that City play, and they cause a lot of trouble and I think we nullified that.
“We were defensively strong, they tried to put a lot of balls over the top, but they couldn’t get through us.
“You can’t give the likes of Oakley and Poole space. We know how good they are, and they’ve proved that this season with the number of goals that they’ve scored, but we didn’t give them a sniff.”
The defence were brilliant, but without the talents of Ellie Preece up front, Met would have had far more defending to do. Turner was keen to rave about Preece’s performance.
“She was outstanding today. We know she’s a good player, but I thinks she proved what she really can do today. Her pace, her strength, her clinical nature in front of goal, she was great! She saved us, when we needed a breather, every single ball we put up there Ellie would chase on to.”
Robyn Pinder
In the build-up to the game, Pinder said that if the Archers were going to get anything out of this game, they would need to find some self-belief, especially after their results this season against the Bluebirds.
However, Met had bucketloads of self-belief on Sunday, and Pinder had a sense that her side could do something special the moment she stepped into the dressing room.
“I don’t know what everyone had for breakfast today! We were under no illusions, we know they’ve had a great season and we know they’re a great team, so we had to find another gear today and we managed to do it. We saw the atmosphere in the changing room when we arrived, and we just knew that we meant business.”
The new formation meant that the forward filled in at wing-back, an unnatural position for the winger, but a role she certainly wasn’t going to shy away from.
“I’ve not played there many times! I’m usually running the other way, not back towards my own goal. But I’m happy to do anything for this team. I had a tough job marking Danielle Green, she’s in incredible form.
“But when you match up against a team like that, it’s player for player, and as long as you win your personal battles, you’ll always come out on top, and that’s what we did today.”
While Ellie Preece did take the player of the match award, Pinder was also eager to highlight the role of Erin Murray in Sunday’s win.
“Ellie was brilliant, but we need to shoutout Erin Murray too. When you have someone as quick as Ellie, you need someone around her at all times. So, Erin’s job is to basically chase Ellie around and try to support her. She put in a real shift today and they both work so well together.”
Grace Corne
For Grace Corne, she put in a performance beyond her years on Sunday. After a heavy 4-0 loss to Swansea last week, it would be easy for the team and defence to wilt under pressure, but Met, and Corne, rose to the occasion.
“Everyone was really resilient. We’ve not had the best results over the past couple of games and to come out today and everyone put in the shift that they have done is outstanding. I couldn’t be prouder of every single player.”
While she may not be as experienced as some of the other players in the squad, Corne certainly didn’t show that inexperience in stopping the Cardiff attack.
“We knew going into this that, all over the pitch, City have got great players. Especially the strikers, they’re fast, and I’ll admit I’m not the quickest! But we adapted to it really well and everyone from the back line to the forward line were tremendous in a Met kit.”
