Wellsford Athletic 3–2 Llandaff Athletic: ten men, no panic

Match report

Wellsford Athletic beat Llandaff Athletic 3-2 on Tuesday 18 August, a result that read like a template for how to turn a sensible defence into a frantic one. Llandaff arrived in warm form, and for the first half they played like it. Owain Penllyn, whose positioning suggests a ceiling much higher than this division, put them ahead on 20 minutes, finishing a move begun by Raphael Vermeulen-Brand. Six minutes later Vermeulen-Brand converted a penalty himself, and the visitors, 11th in the table, led 2-0 at a ground where the home side sit second.

That was the state of things at the break. Wellsford looked short of answers, their passing muddled, their pressing half-hearted. But they emerged for the second period with a different posture, higher up the pitch and braver on the ball. Reinout van Doorn pulled one back on 62 minutes, meeting a feed from Adriano Crialese with the kind of first touch that suggests he had been waiting for it all evening. The home crowd, quiet until then, found its voice. Five minutes later Alexis Anglade equalised, assisted by William Cranford, and Wellsford had wiped out the deficit in the space of five minutes.

Then came the twist. Tobias Renouf went off for a straight red on 68 minutes, and the arithmetic changed. Wellsford had clawed themselves level only to find themselves a man down, facing a visitor in red-hot form with a numerical advantage. It is the kind of moment that separates the sensible from the stubborn. They chose stubborn. İlker Ertekin scored the winner on 79 minutes, a goal that owed plenty to the runner freeing the space in the box, and Wellsford held on through the final minutes despite the inevitable surge of pressure.

The win keeps Wellsford second on 44 points. Llandaff, despite the defeat, will take something from the early promise of Penllyn and Vermeulen-Brand. Tomorrow brings another fixture in this relentless calendar, and there is no time to dwell on the red card or the comeback. The league moves on, and so must they.