Report courtesy of Tim Channon

Seagulls stung again on artificial surface
COLWYN BAY missed the chance to go joint top of the table with a 3-0 defeat at Woodley Sports on Tuesday on the 3G surface where they never seem to do well.

They had a lot of pressure, but created little in the way of clear cut chances and got caught out on the break.  The Seagulls had slightly the better of a first half in which neither side created much, but went a goal down just before the break.  Ian Sheridan shot narrowly wide and had a header saved, while Alex Titchiner was denied by a last ditch tackle when he looked set to score.

Chris Sanna's only save had been from a free kick, but Woodley finished the half strongly and after Antoni Sarcevic had a goal ruled out for offside, Mike Clarke scored with a looping head which dropped over the leaping keeper on 41 minutes.
With frost starting to form on the pitch, Colwyn Bay found passing the ball accurately along the ground was becoming increasingly difficult, and changed tactics in the second half with three substitutions. They then bombarded Woodley with high balls into the box aimed at Tim Brandreth, Tom McGill and Greg Stones, but the home side defended well and allowed few opportunities to get a strike on goal.

Stones was unlucky to have a shot cleared off the line and Brandreth shot narrowly over the bar, while Jimmy Kelly was just wide with another effort.
But the home side then broke away to score two goals on the counter-attack in the last five minutes through Dennis Sherriff and Mark Haslam to give themselves a flattering score line.

In a dearth of scoring chances, Woodley had only five shots on target, scoring with three of them, and two off target, while Colwyn Bay had only two shots on target and five off.

Neil Young said the game showed why 3G pitches are not accepted from the Conference upwards.

"We like to play a certain way, which I believe is the way football should be played, but we just couldn't do it on that surface - particularly when the frost started to form. The ball doesn't behave the same as on grass. When you tried to thread passes through for players to run on to the ball was just skidding away from them.  We decided we had to change it at half-time, ditch our normal passing game and go for high balls into the box. We put them under a lot of pressure doing that, but I thought their two centre backs were outstanding and we didn't get the breaks we needed in the box.”

Young went on to say "If Greg Stones' shot had not been cleared off the line at 1-0 it might have been a different story, but we had to commit men forward in the closing minutes to try and save the game and they've got us on the break, but I can't fault the boys for effort. They have put everything they had into the game, but Woodley have such an advantage on that surface. They are training and playing on it all the time and it is not rocket science to see why all their six league victories so far have come at home and they've turned over the likes of Lancaster and us.”

"Now we've got a huge game against Curzon Ashton on Saturday and I just hope our confidence has not been knocked too much by this result."

Pictures courtesy of Martin Lyons Photography