JD Cymru Premier leaders Penybont made their biggest statement yet on Friday night as they achieved another milestone by defeating champions The New Saints for the first time to continue their excellent start to the new campaign.
Less than 24 hours later, manager Rhys Griffiths was scouting their next opponents with bottom of the table Briton Ferry Llansawel the visitors to the SDM Glass Stadium on Tuesday night. Despite beating Ferry twice already this season, Griffiths was taking the opportunity to watch their 1-1 draw with Flint Town United, and sat down with FAW.cymru to reflect on the night before and the journey he has been on since his appointment in the summer of 2016.
“I think this is the culmination of a lot of factors,” Griffiths said when asked about his side’s undefeated start to the season. “We signed well. I was sorry to see some players leave in the summer, but that’s football.
“Then we had a great pre-season, and I don’t think I’ve ever prepared a team more clearly in terms of how we want to play. The players are taking it on, we’ve built a bit of momentum now and hopefully we can just take it into the next game on Tuesday.”
Summer signing Clayton Green and JD Cymru Premier veteran Chris Venables were on target for Penybont in the dramatic victory as they recorded their sixth win from their opening eight games. “It’s a massive win,” said Green to Sgorio after the match. “We’ve had a great start and beating a team like TNS just shows that on our day we can beat anyone. We go into every game feeling confident.”
Griffiths is widely-regarded as one of the best strikers in the history of the domestic top-flight, and the seven-time Golden Boot winner revealed the late change in approach that enabled his side to achieve their historic victory.
“I was preparing us a certain way,” he explained. “We trained and did an 11 v 11 to have a look and I could see the players were uncomfortable with it. Now it takes a brave man to tell me they don’t want to do it, no-one did that, but I could see from their body language.
“Then you look at the facts. We’re top of the league and will still be top of the league on Friday night no matter what. It was a night game against TNS and they don’t come around that often. We were expecting a big crowd and over 1000 turned out, which was amazing. So when better an opportunity to just go and play with your own freedom and identity?
“We play very much on the front-foot, very physical, aggressive pressing. That’s what we did and obviously it worked. Whatever way you do it, you can come unstuck. But if you do it with your own identity then I think you sleep a bit better in the night if you lose. But I feel like the whole event of last night helped us get three points. If there were 200 people there on a Saturday afternoon it wouldn’t have been the same game. The intensity of the game was massive.”
Since arriving at Penybont in 2016, the 44-year old has delivered promotion to the JD Cymru Premier and has now established them as a leading club in the top-flight, while also reaching the JD Welsh Cup Final in 2022 before qualifying for Europe the following season. Griffiths’ coaching ambitions have been suppported by the club at each step of their journey together.
“The club is obviously made-up of different individual people,” he explained. “There’s been some consistent ones throughout, some members of the board who are no longer with us now for various reasons, but there’s been one or two consistent ones who have always backed me.
“We’ve had our ups and downs behind closed doors as you would expect, and I don’t think anyone who knows me for long enough wouldn’t have had an up and down with me at some point, it’s in my nature, but they’ve backed me all the way.
“The club has thrown down the gauntlet and they’re the ones saying now we need to be better, we need to be the best club in the Welsh football pyramid. That’s the club’s goal now, and we’re not a million miles away. I was very clear from the start about my ambitions and they’ve followed through on their promises.
“I’ve had no reason to leave, I love it and now it’s home for me. I was thinking about it last night, as I’m quite a deep person. I was thinking that no matter what happens it will always be my club. My relationship with Penybont is just different to the clubs I played for because I’ve been so engrossed in it.”
Now three points clear of Cardiff Met at the top of the JD Cymru Premier table heading into Tuesday’s fixtures, Griffiths remains fiercely ambitious about what his club can achieve.
“It’s a difficult task to challenge TNS, but what you’ve got to do first is be the best of the rest. I think we’re better than those other teams, and that’s just me being honest. I said it last year and I was wrong, but I feel the same way again, and hopefully this year I’ll be right.”
But while Griffiths’ side are making statements on the field, the club has also made a significant signing off the field with the appointment of Neil Ward as their new Chief Executive. Ward spent more than a decade as CEO of the FAW Trust and was most-recently Director of Technical Operations with the Moroccan FA, and brings a wealth of experience that will further enhance the club’s status within their community and the domestic game.
“We knew we needed someone to drive the club forward,” said Griffiths. “There’s so many untapped avenues that we can go down to get the club where we want to be. We’re not going to be a commercial giant and we’re not going to be a massive brand, but what we can do is be somewhere that the whole community gets involved with. The club is getting bigger. Does that mean going full time? I hope so. Not imminently, but hopefully one day.”
