MONMOUTH Town returned from West Wales with a much needed three points in their bid for survival in the First division of the Welsh League last Saturday.

The Town travelled to bottom of the table Garden Village knowing that anything less than maximum points would pile more pressure on the Kingfishers who, despite sitting in 11th place in the table, remain firmly in a relegation scrap having played many more games than most of their rivals.

Manager Andrew Smith made one change in personnel by including Sam Palmer in the starting eleven in place of Elliot Ford, who had to settle for a place on the bench. Aaron Davies was unavailable and his place on the bench was taken by Dean Palmer.

Monmouth started brightly on a soft but playable surface and the combination of Greaves, Harrhy and Macdonald certainly looked early on as if they would have too much for the Swansea based outfit. However, for all their quality going forward, the Town have looked vulnerable defensively all year and that was certainly the case early on as numerous mix-ups and failed clearances enabled Garden Village to mount their own attacks on the Town goal.

The visitors could have been three up early on, but Palmer, Guy and Laurie failed to anticipate defensive errors errors that would have led to a number of tap ins for the opening goal. The breakthrough came on 19 minutes when, after good combination play between Greaves, Palmer and Harrhy, Macdonald fired home from the edge of the box with a firm left foot drive.

Many thought that would have seen the flood gates open but, to their credit, the Villagers never gave up and remained resilient and hard working throughout. In truth, there were very few chances created by either side and the game was still in the balance as the sides went in for half time.

The second half began in much the same manner as the first half ended with neither side managing to get a stranglehold of the game and it developed into a scrappy tense affair. The home side certainly sensed they were well in the game and they got their rewards on 55 minutes when a failed clearance eventually resulted in a cross into the box for an unmarked home attacker to head home past Blackburn to level the scores.

Garden Village had picked up only two points all season prior to this game but now sensed a chance to get their first victory of the campaign. Just four minutes later, the home side struck the bar following a swift counter attack.  

Smith introduced Elliot Ford for the hard working Palmer in a bid to add more attacking impotence and give the Town more width as the game became more open.

Rob Laurie nearly scored his second in as many games when he met a Nick Harrhy cross only to be denied by an unbelievable save from the home stopper. Greaves then saw his headed attempt form the rebound deflected over the bar as the Town started to think that it may not be their day. Smith then changed systems to an attacking 3-4-3, knowing how important a win was. Karen replaced Callum Porter in the centre of the park and Jac Hardman came on for Alex O’Leary in a bid to find the winner.  

The town found themselves in good areas at time but poor decision making or lack of composure resulted in no end product as Ashley Ford and Rob Laurie both fired over from good positions.

As the clock entered the final minute, Jack Alderdice crossed into the box where Richard Greaves flicked onto a home defender who could only divert the ball into his own net and hand the Town an extremely unlikely get out of jail free card.

The scoreline then took a somewhat deceiving look when, after breaking out form defence, the Town flew out and created a five on one counter attack that resulted in a home defender handling the ball when Harrhy looked likely to shoot at goal. Macdonald converted the resulting spot kick and the Town knew they had survived a real scare.

Manager Andrew a Smith was relieved, but disappointed after the game. "Despite our poor return in terms of points, we’ve continually said that we are better than our league position suggests but today we’ve come up against a side with two points all season and struggled.

“We started well and, after the goal should have kicked on but for some reason it didn’t happen. Defensively we were poor again and I can’t say why. They are all good players but, at times, looked liked they’ve never played the game before. It’s frustrating. Having said that, we’ve lost games this year when we have deserved more so perhaps we were due that little bit of luck at the end.

“We certainly didn’t deserve to win that today but hopefully it can kick start us into a good finish to the end of the season. We have to play two sides below us both home and away so that’ll be a huge 12 points that we need to pick up".