MacWhirter Welsh League Youth Division West

Sunday, 13th December 2009

West End Under-19’s

5-3

Port Talbot Town Under-19’s

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Under-19 Team manager Mark Pike has expressed concerns following his sides match at West End on Sunday. Port Talbot Town suffered a 5-3 defeat despite playing some excellent football on the difficult surface at Pryderi Park but the biggest concern for Pike was the lack of protection his players received from the match referee rather than the result. “I asked the referee to watch their high tackles and elbows,” said Mark Pike after the match. “His reply was to tell me to get on with it as it is part of the game. I told him that someone would be seriously hurt unless he changed his approach to controlling the game and within five minutes Sam France receives an elbow to his face that went unpunished. The tackles continued and before long Jamie Jones had to leave the field on a stretcher following a two-footed lunge much to the amusement of the West End players, their attitude was a disgrace”. Port Talbot went a goal ahead through France but a dubious penalty and two free-kicks from outside the area allowed West End to take a 3-1 lead. Port Talbot came back to 3-2 but a second questionable penalty made it 4-2 but the young Port Talbot Town side continued to show great character to come back to 4-3 with a goal from Jordan Tomlinson. West End completed the scoring with a fifth on the counter-attack however after Jamie Jones had been stretchered off. “We put together some excellent passages of play and it really is now starting to come together for us,” added Pike. “We need a run of games now as this was our first match for three weeks. We are a young side and today Luke Martin and Tom Gigg made positive debuts for us in a game that was played on a dreadful surface with a poor referee who offered us no protection. We were the better team on the day and scored three cracking goals but young players cannot be kicked off the park and receive no protection from the match officials”.

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