Battling Terras Take The Points
By Paul O'Reilly

20th September 2000

The Terras produced a battling performance in a dark and wet Penydarren Park ground to earn three valuable points thanks to David Laws early strike.
  
The match was far from straight forward for the visitors who had to endure large sporadic spells of pressure, particularly in the closing stages. 
 
They did, however, also cause the home side a lot of problems of their own, hitting the back of the net three times - two being disallowed for offside. Whilst Rowbotham's effort was clearly offside, Laws' second effort, a great header into the far corner on 32 minutes, looked okay from behind the goal. Weymouth then came close again after 43 minutes when a chip from the edge of the area beat keeper, Neil Thomas, but struck the far post and away.
 
The referee and his assistants did their best to ruin the game, with yellow cards being produced at will, mostly unnecessarily. Mr. Tanner even sent Merthyr's assistant manager (and named sub),  Paul Giles, into the stands in the first half. Presumably something he said. It was of great surprise that a red card was not seen during the 94 or so minutes of this match.
 
In the closing stages, the visiting defence held firm and Danny Potter tipped over a long drive from outside the box to keep only his second clean sheet of the season.
 
So, it was settled with David Laws' 14th minute goal when he chested the ball down inside the area and moved forward to slot the ball past the advancing Neil Thomas.
 
Elsewhere, Dorchester scored late on to earn a home point against Crawley, Tamworth produced another home win, this time at the expense of Ilkeston Town, and the main shock of the night was reserved for Margate's 5:0 home thrashing of leaders, Welling United, which allowed Crawley to move to the top of the table tonight.