Cardiff Met 2 Bala Town 1

JD Cymru Premier Championship

The Lakesiders brought their Cymru Premier season to a close with a trip down to Cardiff Met, in search of their first win in the Championship Conference this season.

Colin Caton’s men were looking for a morale-boosting victory ahead of the Welsh Cup final against The New Saints at Bangor’s Nantporth Stadium on Sunday, but were beaten 2-1 by the Cyncoed Campus Stadium side, who had a healthy two-goal lead at the break through Eliot Evans and Matt Chubb.

Bala battled back after the turnaround with Nathan Burke reducing the deficit on 81 minutes and a point seemed on the cards when they were awarded a late penalty but Dave Edwards was thwarted by the keeper.

After an even opening 10 minutes with both sides having spells of the ball, the first chance was fashioned by the hosts with Bala keeper Harri Lloyd getting a firm glove to the ball to keep out Sam Jones’ close range effort from an angle.

The sides continued to exchange blows but it was the hosts who broke the deadlock on the half hour, Eliot Evans capping a patient move with a clinical finish into the far corner which gave Lloyd no chance.

Lloyd was the busier of the two keepers and had to be alert to palm away another effort with a save down to his left to deny Jones again before collecting the follow-up cross.

But he was beaten again on the stroke of half time, when he failed to gather a corner giving Chubb an easy close range header to double the lead.

Bala needed a much improved second half performance and they started well with Naim Arsan delivering a pinpoint ball over the top towards James Davies, who took the ball down well but couldn’t direct his effort on target.

Ill discipline cost the home side on 67 minutes when Chubb was shown a straight red after pushing Arsan over in an off-the-ball incident.

Bala set about making the most of their numerical advantage and thought they should have been awarded a penalty when Paul Rutherford was upended as he was about to get his shot away, but the referee waved play on.

They continued to press and got their reward on 81 minutes, Burkes’ edge-of-the-area effort taking a wicked deflection which wrongfooted home keeper Alex Lang to set up an interesting finish at Cyncoed.

Lang produced a fine save to deny Edwards from the penalty spot moments later after a trip on James Davies before Met were reduced to nine men, Chris Craven shown a straight red for a bad tackle on Ollie Southern, who was taken off the field by stretcher and replaced by Christoph Aziamale.

The delay for treatment meant nine minutes of stoppage time with Bala pushing hard for the equaliser but they failed to make the breakthrough.

Bala manager Colin Caton said: “I thought we started the game really well and were competitive. But then we were really poor defensively to give two goals away.

“Defensively we haven’t been good enough over the last few weeks, few months.

“And then it gives you a massive uphill battle to try to get back into the game.

“Second half I thought we were really good and could have gone on to win it. It was an eventful second half with everything that went on but credit to Cardiff Met, they’ve done really well this season and they are a good team.”

On a difficult season for Bala he added: “We’re champions of the league cup and we’re in the final of the Welsh Cup and we’re in the play-off semi-final as well if we don’t win the Welsh Cup.

“Our standards are so high. I’ve just seen on social media, teams celebrating to stay in the league.

“So for us to be league cup champions and then to be in the final of the Welsh Cup which is a great occasion for everyone to go and then to be in a semi-final of a play-off, by our standards it’s not a good season but a lot of people would change with us.

“But we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to be better prepared going into the Welsh Cup final otherwise it will be a bad day for us. But there’s no pressure on our lads, it’s important that we go an enjoy it, but it’s important that we prep well and look forward to it and give a great account of ourselves.”