Nomads lose out to Lilywhites

A second round tie in theWord cup at the Corbett Sports Stadium started brightly for The Nomads but ultimately ended in disappointment as Rhyl ran out 2-0 winners.  A brace from Steve Lewis sealed Rhyl's progress to the quarter-finals despite a strong performance from the away side.

The game started lively with Rhyl gaining a couple of corners but with The Nomads defence coping well.  Rhyl believed they had a great chance of scoring until Steve Lewis was flagged offside.  The Nomads fought back with some great passing movement from Paul Mooney who was controlling the midfield well. Mooney came close on 23 minutes, narrowly heading the ball wide of the right post.  The height of The Nomads game came just before half time when Michael Hayes was brought down in the box and the referee pointed to the spot.  Hayes stepped up and shot right, but Keeper Alex Ramsey did well to go the right way and save, keeping the half time score at 0-0.

The second half showed a much brighter Rhyl side that brought a lot more pressure onto The Nomads, with Rhyl's number 9 Steve Lewis scoring on 47 minutes before securing his brace just a couple of minutes after.  In a short space of time the game had been turned on its head and left The Nomads with a lot of work to do.  All three substitutions were made shortly after with Gary O' Toole replacing Lee Jones, while Danny Desormeaux and Jack Rowlands came on for Shaun Tinsley and Jamie Wynne.

The Nomads continued to threaten throughout the game but Rhyl had a strong hold on this tie. Gary O'Toole came close twice, as well as having a goal disallowed for offside, but Nomads could just not break down a now determined Lilywhites line up.  

With about 10 minutes to go, young Aron Williams was forced to leave the field having been hit hard by a sliding tackle from Rhyl's Tom Roberts and with Nomads having already used their allocated three substitutes, the visitors ahd to see out the remainder of the game with 10 men.

The fourth official signalled two minutes of injury time by which point the game was all but wrapped up.  The full time whistle brought disappointment to a young Nomads line up who would have wanted to go all the way in this competition.

After the game, Director of Football Mark McGregor said "It was another game where one half was completely different to the other.  I thought the referee could have been braver as for me, the foul on Mike Hayes for the penalty was a clear red card as he was the last man denying a goalscoring opportunity, but having said that, Rhyl were the better side in the second half and punished us for not taking the chances we created in the first half."

Match Photos