Llandaff Athletic 3–1 Sussex Athletic: ten men survive

Match report

Look, the scoreboard tells a tidy story. It wasn't a tidy story. Olaf Goldschmidt got the first at 12 minutes, a neat finish from Samuel Cardew's pass, and for nine minutes Llandaff looked like the side that had actually found a bit of form lately. Then Augustin Defossé saw red at 20 minutes. Straight red, no debate. Seventy minutes with ten men and a one-goal lead is not a game plan, it is a period of existence you simply survive.

They survived it. Partly through stubbornness, partly through Cardew's wand of a right foot. His second assist arrived at 39 minutes, Owain Penllyn nodding in on the stroke of half-time, and Llandaff went in 2-0 up. That mattered more than the goal itself. A second just before the break, a man down, turns a wobble into a platform. The away dressing room would have had their own thoughts at the interval, and none of them kind.

Sussex, to their credit, kept knocking. They sit 13th in the table for a reason, but they do not roll over. Arthur Grasmere finished from Frieder Blumenthal's cross at 89 minutes, and suddenly 2-1 with stoppage time ahead felt like a very different mood. It lasted about sixty seconds. Goldschmidt converted a penalty at 90 minutes for his second of the night, and the hope was put back in its box.

The earlier meeting between these two finished 4-2, so this was the polite version of the fixture. Llandaff will take it, especially after going a man down so early. They have no time to enjoy it, though. The next matchday arrives tomorrow, and in this league you find out how much you have left before the ice in the recovery tubs has melted.