The bookies seemed pretty confident that this season would be another cakewalk for The New Saints in their pursuit of an 18th JD Cymru Premier title but Briton Ferry Llansawel had other ideas.
The 2024 JD Cymru Couth champions had one goal in mind last season and that was to stay in the top-tier after finally making the grade.
Now their manager Andy Dyer has updated the thinking to greatly improve on last season’s 10th place finish in the wake of a 3-0 win at Park Hall.
The Ferrymen’s victory at the home of the perennial champions was one of the biggest upsets in the league’s recent history and inflicted on TNS a first defeat on the opening day of the domestic league season since 2017.
The statisticians are still checking the last time they lost to another Welsh team by three goals at home.
Craig Harrison’s side lost five league games last season, but that was understandable given the fact they had played 14 games in Europe.
What this result will do is give every other team in the league the belief they can upset the odds.
“In the changing room after the game I said ‘Well done, here’s a pat on the back’ to the players and then asked them ‘can we do this again next week?’” said Briton Ferry boss Andy Dyer.
“I spoke last season about us growing as a team, well we are here now and we’ve got to stand up. It’s no longer about growing, it’s about delivering.
"As we all know, TNS is the hardest place to come in the league but the boys were fantastic. It was only in the 97th minute when they whistle went that allowed myself to think ‘we’ve got this’.
“Once we got our second goal it gave us the confidence to believe we could go on and win the game.
TNS started the second half much quicker than us but once we got control of them the second goal made all the difference.”
To say this result came totally out of the blue would be wrong because Dyer’s men beat the champions 3-1 at home last season in atrocious conditions. But doing the same at Park Hall is different.
It was a victory that took them to the top of the table after round one and left the champions rooted to the bottom.
Was it a reaction to TNS going out at the earliest stage in Europe this year, or the natural growing pains of a team that made nine new signings in the summer?
"We missed good opportunities and conceded really sloppy goals - bitterly disappointed. We weren’t great and conceded three sloppy goals," said TNS boss Harrison.
“We need to learn from this pretty quickly. It’s not a good recipe when you miss chances and give away poor goals.
“We defended really well throughout our European campaign and didn’t concede three goals. It’s tough to take, but we have to take it on the chin and move on quickly.”
They will certainly need to do that given their assignment this weekend is at Penybont’s Dragon Bet Stadium. Penybont were runners-up last season and beat TNS 1-0 at home.
The new hero for Briton Ferry was young striker Reuben Davies, who scored twice. The third goal came from Tom Walters with an acrobatic header.
As first touches go, Darren Thomas’ instinctive strike after coming on in the 91st minute couldn’t have been any better as he snatched an equaliser to make it 2-2 in Cyncoed to earn Caernarfon Town a point on the opening day weekend of the JD Cymru Premier.
Cardiff Met had bossed the first half to take a two goal lead and looked to be cruising to victory before the 38-year-old Thomas was thrown into the fray as a potential last gasp solution for Richard Davies’ visiting team.
There were just a couple of minutes left when Thomas took the field, but once the ball was chested down to him on the edge of the area after a cross from the left he immediately knew what to do.
His first time shot went through a host of bides before nestling in the bottom left hand corner.
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Added to a 78th minute goal from Matty Jones it meant the Cofis had pulled off a major snatch-and-grab raid after falling behind to first-half efforts from CJ Craven, from the penalty spot, and then Ryan Reynolds doubled the lead just before the break.
Barry Town United’s Ben Williams-Margetson had the honour of scoring the first goal of the new season, while Penybont’s James Crole picked up the first red card.
Williams-Margetson struck in the 17th minute of his side’s game at Stebonheath against newly promoted Llanelli Town to set the Linnetts on course for a 2-0 triumph.
That made it 16 games without defeat to The Reds.
It was the first time in six years that Lee Johns’ Llanelli side had played in the top tier. It gave them a taste of what is to come as they conceded a second goal to Ieuan Owen just before the break.
It was third v second from last season at the Bridge Meadow Stadium in Pembrokeshire as Haverfordwest County were beaten 1-0 by Penybont.
Both teams had fallen at the first hurdle in the Uefa Conference League ahead of the domestic season start.
Rhys Griffiths visiting side did it the hard way as they had to play for 40 minutes in the second half following the dismissal of star striker Crole for a second bookable offence.
It was still goalless at that stage, but nine minutes later Mael Davies picked up a goal that home boss Tony Pennock labelled “a sloppy goal”.
“I thought they edged it first half. When we went a man down I thought it was going to be really tough because they were on top already,” admitted Penybont manager Griffiths
But we showed some really good organisation, although ultimately it was our will, grit and determination to get through. We battled hard to win.”
Flint Town hung on to bag a point on the road at Bala Town as they came from behind to share a 1-1 draw.
The home side took the lead in the 20th minute through Hussein Mehasseb, who scored a goal and a penalty in the shoot-out triumph over Guilsfield in the Nathaniel Cup the previous week, before Ben Wynne replied 10 minutes later.
The game between Colwyn Bay and Connah’s Quay Nomads ended up as a 1-1 draw. J
Jason Oswell drew first blood for the visitors before Nathan Peate levelled things up in the 36th minute.
