MONMOUTH Town stunned their Welsh Premier hosts with a superb first half dis- play that saw them take a 3–0 lead

inside 25 minutes. They failed to weather a second half blitz though, gifted two goals to the Nomads and crashed out of the

Welsh Cup. Although Town

travelled with some level of expectation, this was surpassed as first Eliot Evans fired in from close range after McCormick had fum-

bled a MacDonald free kick.

Then MacDonald himself embarrassed the 'keeper with a fine strike from 45 yards before the out- standing Alderdice rammed home a goal mouth scramble to seal a barely believ- able 3–0 lead.

It could and per- haps should have been more as Mac- Donald miscued a couple of half chances, Harrhy couldn't quite get his shots away when well placed, and a few other efforts came to nought.

Ham and Davies combined well and

Ham in particular was taking the game to the North Walians. The Nomads for their part were methodical but simply second best throughout the half and struggled to counter the Kingfish- ers' passing and movement.

A goal on the stroke of half time in a rare attack by skip- per George Horan gave them some belief that they could claw their way back into the game.

Predictably former Welsh international Steve Evans, on loan from TNS, moved from centre half to

centre forward along with three of his col- leagues and the management orders were clear – in foot- ball parlance, put it in the mixer!

From angles and straight balls, from out wide and half way, the ball went in the mixer, and although Blackburn, Clare, Guy et al coped admirably it was clearly going to be a long 45 minutes.

For all that, Mon- mouth had the wherewithal to nick another and maybe just maybe put the game beyond reach.

An horrendous mix up between Clare

and Blackburn hand- ed the Nomads sec- ond goal on a platter as O'Toole slotted home a half clear- ance and the momen- tum had swung deci- sively in the North Walians favour.

Another ball into the box found Evans and his header back across goal allowed Miller to head in past Blackburn off the post.

At 3–3 Ham had another chance but curled a couple of shots, wide. The vet- eran Sam Palmer delayed his strike a couple of seconds too long and saw his effort blaze over and

a Rob Laurie header also flashed past the post.

But, still the out- standing player on the pitch, MacDon- ald probed, harried, flicked and generally ran his socks off but to no avail as anoth- er raid ended when Miller, latching onto another half clear- ance, found the time and space to drill a low shot past Black- burn.

With seven min- utes remaining, a through ball caught Guy out of position and his back header let in Gary Roberts to claim the fifth. There was still time

Football

for a red card for Roberts after a poor challenge on the superb Alderdice but not enough for any late rally by Mon- mouth.

Town manager Andrew Smith had mixed emotions after the game praising his team for a scintil- lating first half per- formance but insist- ed he had no time for plucky loser tags.

"There's nothing brave or heroic about losing a three goal lead. We didn't come here to make up the numbers.

"We came as Welsh League champions and came to win.

They couldn't lie with us in the first half but knew how to win ugly. And they did.

"That's the differ- ence between the Welsh Premier League and the lower tiers. If we want to be in there week in week out we'd better learn how to do that too!"

Town are next in action against high flying Cardiff Met University on Satur- day (kick off 2pm) who were the only lower division team to beat Welsh Pre- mier opposition, see- ing off 2013 winners Prestatyn.