South Wales will be guaranteed a representative in this season’s Dafabet Welsh Premier League Europa League Play-Off final as the league’s two southern clubs go head-to-head in front of the live television cameras on Sunday (2.15).
Few would’ve tipped Carmarthen or Cardiff Met to be in the end of season shakedown at the start of the season, but their respective good form in Phase 1 of the season paid dividends as both teams secured a top-six spot and an automatic play-off place.
Sunday’s semi-final at Richmond Park brings with it an interesting contrast of styles.
Under the astute eye of wily manager Mark Aizlewood, Carmarthen possess bags of WPL experience and are at their most effective when required to roll their sleeves up and dig in for a result.
Young guns Cardiff Met have one of the strongest side’s in the league technically and it was their solid form at their Cyncoed Campus home earlier in the season which set the tone for their successful top-six push.
In what is just their first season in the top-flight, their inexperience could easily be mistaken as a vulnerability but Cardiff Met’s eye-catching brand of football has seen them mix it with the very best in the WPL. Regardless of how far their play-off run goes, their season can only be considered a successful one.
Following the inter-season split, neither side were able to make an impact in the Championship Conference where the gulf in quality and resources amongst the top-four clubs is considerably higher than that of the rest of the league.
Despite winning only three games in Phase 2, Carmarthen should look no further than their victory over previously unbeaten TNS as a measure of what they are capable and Mark Aizlewood is quite right to allude to his side successfully being ‘the best of the rest’.
Cardiff Met will draw faith from their only post-split victory which came at the expense of Carmarthen in the form of morale-boosting 4-0 win for the Students.
While Carmarthen will be looking to count on their sheer grit and resilience to take themselves a step closer to Europe, Cardiff Met will need to apply all that they’ve learned in their new surroundings of the WPL to find a way past one of the league’s most disciplined sides.
Featured image courtesy of Allen Fitzpatrick/Carmarthen Town FC/Welsh Premier League
