Llanelli Town boss Lee John hopes his team can now turn the corner and continue to improve after the newly-promoted side achieved an elusive first JD Cymru Premier win of the season.
The Reds return to action against Haverfordwest County on Friday night, galvanised by a dramatic midweek victory over Briton Ferry. Defeating the Bluebirds would see John’s side move off the foot of the table.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said a relieved John after his side’s 2-1 victory at Ferry ended an eight-match winless run to start the season. The Reds had lost their first seven matches before a goalless draw at home against Colwyn Bay last weekend.
“Obviously we haven’t played very well and have conceded a lot of goals but in the last two games we’ve been a lot more solid and certainly in the second half [against Briton Ferry], we showed a lot of end product as well.”
Having won the JD Cymru South title last season, Llanelli’s difficult start to life in the top-flight looked to continue after Rio Dyer had fired Ferry into a first-half lead on Tuesday.
But Mitchell Bates’ dismissal for the hosts saw the Reds rally late in the second half as substitutes Danny Williams and Rio Booth completed a remarkable turnaround inside the final 10 minutes to secure a precious three points.
“I think they’re called game changers in this day and age!” quipped John, when asked if Llanelli’s second-half substitutes changed the course of the game. “But that’s exactly what they were. We tried to stay in the game as long as we could and then change it to have a positive effect in the second half. Danny Williams, Tristan Jenkins, Brad Gibbings, Rio Booth were all outstanding.
“No one likes losing. Obviously, the players have been feeling it, but there’s a great group of boys here and they never lost faith.
“Training attendance is superb. The attitude, application, every game is superb. We’ve just made a lot of individual errors, which we need to rectify, and I think we are slowly changing that.
Last season saw then-newly-promoted Briton Ferry get off to a similarly poor start following promotion to the JD Cymru Premier, with Andy Dyer’s team losing their first six games before their fortunes gradually improved and eventually saw the club finish comfortably above the relegation zone.
John is hoping a similar fate awaits his side this time around.
“People keep saying to me that Ferry lost the first six last year. I mean, we lost the first six, and our seventh game was TNS away. Not that we were going up there thinking we were just going to lose, but obviously it was going to be a difficult task.
“We’ll take a little bit of confidence from defeating Briton Ferry, but ultimately, in every game, we just need to be more competitive. We need to be more determined like we were in the second half [against Ferry], we need to put in more crosses and get more shots off in the box and keep goals out of our net. We’ve conceded 27 goals now in nine games, and that’s not acceptable, so we need to get better.”
Haverfordwest are in struggling form themselves ahead of their trip to Stebonheath on Friday night, with the Bluebirds losing their last four league games in succession to also sit in the relegation zone, just a point above Llanelli.
“Before Colwyn Bay, we looked at the week ahead and saw a chance to take points,” John said. “Two home games against bottom-six sides and Briton Ferry away — we’re really happy to have four points from the last two.”
