Connah's Quay Nomads 4, Flexsys Cefn Druids 1

Jan 31 2003 By David Triggs, Flintshire Chronicle Series

DRUIDS have never won a league game at Deeside Stadium but for almost hour on Saturday they looked good enough to claim a point at the very least.

With the scores level at 1-1, Nomads were looking laboured in midfield and short of attacking options on a cut-up pitch in desperate need of resurfacing.

Manager Nev Powell had seen enough, and the 57th-minute arrival of Adam Arkell - on as a substitute for the subdued Jon Kenworthy - changed the course of the match.

Arkell moved alongside Tommy Mutton up front, allowing Stuart Terry to slip back into Kenworthy's position wide on the right.

The tactical switch worked perfectly and within two minutes of the substitution, midfielder Craig Hutchinson found Terry in acres of space on the right.

The former Bangor City ace carefully picked out a pass to the prolif ic Tommy Mutton who hit a f irsttime shot past keeper Stuart McIntosh.

The hosts' third of the afternoon arrived f ive minutes later and Terry was once again the

His dangerous centre should have been collected by McIntosh but defender Aled Rowlands, under pressure from Arkell, accidently deflected the ball past the keeper and into his own net from three yards out.

With the Ancients' defence being stretched all over the place by the movement of Terry and Arkell, Mutton found space to tee up Hutchinson who made it 4-1 with a simple tap-in on 69 minutes.

It was all a far cry from a tight first half which saw the visitors take the lead through Steve Rogers.

The powerfully-built striker, on loan from TNS, was brought down in the area on 25 minutes by a combination of George Horan and Craig Lawton.

Rogers dusted himself down and sent Nomads keeper David Walsh the wrong way with a coolly-taken right-footed spotkick.

The Deesiders hadn't posed too much of an attacking threat during the opening period but they managed to level the scores four minutes before the half-time break.

With al l their big players still upf ield following a corner, Mutton looped over a cross to Horan who planted a header back across the six-yard box for Terry to crash home.

Nomads were warming to the challenge and, following the second-half introduction of Arkell, there was only going to be one winner. And Druids' miserable afternoon was completed in injury time when Brett Jeffries was redcarded for violent conduct following a tangle with Horan.

Nomads: Walsh, Hopkins, Tuft, Hutchinson, Horan, McCosh, Griffiths, Mutton, Lawton (Mazzarella 88), Kenworthy (Arkell

57), Terry. Sub (not used): Morris Attendance: 201 Referee: Kevin Jones (Llangaffo)