Hard work pays off for Nomads as they run riot at Llanelli

• Llanelli Town 0-7 Connah’s Quay Nomads

Llanelli were given a harsh introduction to life in the JD Welsh Premier League as Connah’s Quay ran riot at Stebonheath Park on Sunday afternoon.

“Great start to the season today. Huge amount of work over last 3 months during European and pre season campaign. Players efforts been immense. We assess, analyze, develop and go again ready for next week. Superb to be back in competitive football season.” – Jay Catton, Nomads Director of Football.

Michael Wilde’s header on 6’ opened the scoring, as he turned home Bakare’s cross. Bakare then turned scorer on 14’ with a header of his own.

Declan Poole made it three on 24’, his low shot taking a deflection on it’s way in.

The home side regrouped and fashioned a spell of pressure before the break, but any hopes they had of a second half fightback were dashed when first Ryan Wignall and then Michael Parker found the net to extend the visitors’ lead.

Bakare then got a second moments later, again heading home to make it six.

There was still time for Laurence Wilson to get a seventh in injury time to give Andy Morrison’s side the perfect start to the new season.

A fantastic start to our @WPL_Official campaign with a 7-0 win over @LlanelliTownAFC.

The scorers:

⚽️⚽️ Bakare
⚽️ Wilde
⚽️ Wignall
⚽️ Parker
⚽️ Poole
⚽️ Wilson

— Connah’s Quay Nomads (@the_nomads) August 12, 2018

Manager Andy Morrison said it was a “great way to start the season, we’ve done a lot of work this week in preparation for this game. I saw Llanelli play last week at Carmarthen and saw some real qualities they have.”

“We nullified them today, we exposed little things we saw last week, and that we have worked on in training. You plan for things, sometimes they come off – sometimes they don’t but today we were very good and clinical.”

Despite being three up by halftime Morrison had harsh words for some of his players at the break, he said:

“There was a 10 minute period where the lads started to think they were something they weren’t which we sorted out at half time with some harsh words, they went out in the second half we looked really solid.”

“If our midfielders are able to get their heads up with the pace that we’ve got with Bakare and Wignall and Declan Poole breaking, the point of attack that Andy Owens and Wildey give us, were very hard to stop.”

Morrison believes preparation for last months Europa League tie has given his team an advantage:

“It was a tough baptism for them (Llanelli) – and with European football were probably a month ahead of them but they will definitely come good, they have too many good players in there team not to. The score at the end is probably harsh, it seemed like when we got a shot on target we scored.”

It’ll be an altogether different proposition next Sunday for Nomads when they play host to TNS, and despite Sunday’s comfortable win at Llanelli Morrison is under no illusion about next week’s task.

“TNS are still way ahead of the rest of us, were all playing catch up, we’re trying to close the gap as we closed last year and the year before and were trying to get close to them.

I’m under no illusions, they are streets ahead of us, in infrastructure, in budget, in how long they have been at the top,and the resources that they have – they are way ahead of all of us. We have a lot of hard work to do in preparation for Sunday’s game.”

Photo: Nik Mesney/NCM Media

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