Monmouth Town 4 Garden Village 1

Monmouth Town's Kingfishers, sponsored by WyeMedia, extended their lead at the top of Welsh League Division Two to a massive thirteen points with a comfortable victory over third placed Swansea side Garden Village who had travelled looking to gain revenge for a 5 - 0 opening day defeat. Prior to kick off the teams and supporters had observed a minutes silence in tribute to Wales team manager Gary Speed but once the game was underway it was hard to keep up with the opening 15 minutes. 

Garden Village took the lead after four minutes breaking up a soporific move by Town and galloping through relatively unopposed to round Pass and slot into an empty net. The joy was short lived as Elliot Ford went through less than a minute later to fire home, before MacDonald scored his 34th of the season then Ford posted a 3 - 1 lead by the time the 15 minutes were up. Bowen completed the scoring on 43 minutes after Palmer had contrived to miss from two inches, fired straight at the keeper barely two minutes later, seen a number of other efforts spurned. Six or seven wouldn't have flattered the Kingfishers' first half show. 

Garden Village then dominated most of the second half possession threatening occasionally but not consistently and found Tom Pass in good form for the Town. In truth however most of the efforts were speculative and the visitors seemed aware that over committing to attack exposed them to the treble trouble of Ford, MacDonald and Bowen who between them have netted over 60 times in all competitions so far. A spying dossier, compiled by the visitors coaching staff that stretched to six pages, explained how they were going to nullify this potent threat had been discarded in the dug out at the end of the game. In reality it had been consigned to fantasy the moment Ford had bagged his second. Town co-boss Barry Burns once again praised his troops who have now reached the halfway stage in the campaign with 40 points, 62 goals, and a much improved defensive record. "It's still too early to crack the champagne but we're doing it the right way. Its a cliche but it really is one game at a time. Eight wins (from fifteen games) will be enough for promotion and maybe the title. Until then we need to keep focussed." 

This Saturday Town entertain Newcastle Emlyn at the sportsground 2pm kick off.

You can watch the highlights on YouTube (Kingfisher1930)