Bluebirds in the Capital

I initially had no interest in going to this game. Cardiff Met has a terrible ground, if you can call it that, and plays terrible football, so it wasn't very enticing. What made it enticing, however, was that we still needed a point to all but secure third place.

Because of this, I was picked up at five o’clock from town to go to the capital. 

We were caught in slow traffic leading up to Cross Hands which made us slightly late. Fortunately, we only missed the first five minutes.

The Cyncoed is a bizarre venue as it’s incredibly lifeless. It seems to suck out any atmosphere. The football they usually play reflects this.

Met had all the early possession. They had come out of the blocks with clear intent. Despite some wayward shots. Alarm bells were ringing.

Haverfordwest did start to get some good passages of play going. Iori and Owain linking up well on the right-hand side.

Met are a very vocal team, you could hear their anger and frustration clearly. This was probably down to the lack of any noise from the university students/parents of the players. Because let’s face it, nobody supports Met unless they are a relative of a player/staff member or attend the University.

Hawkins took a knock around halfway through the first half. Whilst he was receiving treatment, Kelland Absalom and Joel Edwards were clearly annoyed at something and hilariously argued with each other on the pitch.

Cardiff Met were on top. And there was only one team that was going to score first.

In the 40th minute, the ball travels from just inside the Met half, it looked like this should be an easy pass back from Iori to the keeper. For some reason, there is a communication breakdown. In this time, Barnaby Soady has chased the ball down, Zac Jones has come out to clear it, but it bounces off Iori, and Soady takes the ball and rolls it across the empty box for the experienced Adam Roscrow to tap in. The goal scorer has played for TNS, Bala and has had multiple spells here at Met, scoring everywhere he went, he wasn't missing this.

Discussions happen at half-time, questioning the approach we have taken to the game. We were playing long balls to the strikers, but Owain’s and Dan’s skillset didn’t suit this way. Ahmun had to come on, we thought. I personally think Dan is wasted in a striker position and suits being a number 10 in the midfield.

We came out strong, and our build-up play and attacking were more precise. If you have watched the Sgorio highlights you would assume that Met were dominant. But that really wasn’t the case. Greg was everywhere, winning possession and dictating play, Abu was dominating the left hand side, and Lee was being our defensive general. 

At the hour-mark, Ben Ahmun and Jacob Owen come on and really make the difference. The right wing back position becomes stronger in defence at attack and we have a target man up top.

The best Met chance came to CJ Craven outside the box, which you’d argue he should be doing better, but it was certainly a wake-up call. It went wide, but it was a chance where your heart skips a beat.

In the 68th minute, we were gifted with an equaliser. If this happened on Football Manager against you, you would have broken something. 

Jacob Owen whipped the ball into the middle from the right hand side, which finds Kyle Kenniford, who is having regular minutes now, and is getting better. He gets a touch on the ball and it hits the post. What Absalom does, only he knows as he just looks at the ball hitting the post, it then ricochets off of him and goes in. A crazy, crazy goal but was celebrated in good measure anyway!

Zac, as usual, made some good point-blank shots, keeping us in the game too. Another super season from our favourite Kiwi is coming to an end, and he is just waiting for the end of the season to get his Golden Glove trophy for keeping the most clean sheets in the league. 

A point here all-but guarantees securing 3rd place and potentially still, a home UEFA Conference League playoff final place. We await until tomorrow 13/4/25 for the result of Penybont and Caernarfon. If Caernarfon fail to win, third place is secured, marking our joint best ever top-flight finish (since the inception of the League of Wales/Welsh Premier/Cymru Premier), tied with our 2003/04 season. 

#UTFB!

Full-time Cardiff Met 1-1 Haverfordwest. Attendance 282