REFLECTIONS

REFLECTIONS David Rapson looks back at previous league games against TNS

Nomads’ supporters of a nervous disposition should look away now because our past record against tonight’s visitors is not good! This will be our 59th meeting in the league since The New Saints entered the competition in 1993 when they played under the title of Llansantffraid. Since then we have ‘amassed’ just seven victories and four of them have come in the past five years.

When opposing Llansantffraid between 1993 and 1996 we won two and drew two of the half dozen matches until a change of title, to Total Network Solutions ‘pulled the rug from beneath us.’ As champions for the past eight seasons, TNS have been the team to beat in everyone’s eyes and few have managed it. In fact, since the start of the 2011/12 campaign, TNS have played 280 league games and lost a mere 32, to thirteen different teams. Newtown’s recent victory was their fifth against TNS, with four of those being at Park Hall. Bangor City and Connah’s Quay have each beaten TNS four times during the period while Airbus UK Broughton and Carmarthen Town each claimed three victories. Aside from Newtown’s successes at Park Hall, TNS have lost only seven other home games on their own pitch since the start of the 2011/12 season. An astonishing record.

Although our two clubs had met early in the 1993/94 season in a two-legged League Cup tie, remembered for Nomads coming from 3-0 down on aggregate to win on away goals, our first league encounter was on 12th February 1994 at the Halfway Ground when goals from Dave O’Gorman, Dave Davies and Scott Taylor cancelled out strikes from Billy Morris and Graham Ellis.

The 2-2 draw at Treflan in May 1994 ensured The Saints kept their place in the league, for a Nomads victory would have sent Llansantffraid back to the Cymru Alliance twelve months after their promotion to the League of Wales. The following year Llansantffraid completed a league ‘double’ over us – the first of 15 such occasions. The 1995/96 season featured a goalless draw at the Halfway after Nomads had won 2-1 at Treflan on 28th October 1995. That remains our solitary victory in the away fixture after 29 attempts! Nomads’ team that day was as follows: Phil Collister, Gary Wynne, Mike Carroll, Darren Wynne, Barry Thomas, Carl Smyth, Stuart Rain, Marc Limbert, Danny McGoona, Peter Hughes and Chris Davies. In the midst of a run of ten unbeaten games Nomads took the lead in the eighth minute courtesy of Danny McGoona. An own goal just after the interval increased our lead before Tony Henry’s penalty kick left us with more than half an hour to hang on for the

three points. We shared the points at Llansantffraid in each of the next two seasons before embarking on a run of 24 visits from which Nomads have gained one solitary point to date – a 0-0 draw in January 2016.

There have been a few heavy defeats along the way none more embarrassing than being trounced 0-7 at home in November 2004 when Mike Wilde scored one of the goals, something he made a habit of doing over the years before Andy Morrison brought him to Deeside! That victory was The Saints’ biggest away win in the league at the time although this season a 12-0 success at Airbus UK Broughton usurped that, as well as two other huge away wins at Bangor City (April 2014) and Aberystwyth Town (August 2019). On the other hand, Nomads have lost ten of the previous meetings with TNS by just the odd goal. The most recent at Park Hall was one such defeat, on a night when Nomads could feel aggrieved at losing a game in which they performed so well.

In 2009/10 The New Saints were pushed all the way for the championship by Llanelli yet TNS lost only two games and conceded a miserly 13 league goals in 34 games. That was the season in which Connah’s Quay found themselves demoted as a result of the league contracting from 18 teams to just a dozen. Nonetheless, it was The Nomads who inflicted one of those two losses when Mike Hayes scored in the 69th minute of the match at the Deeside Stadium on 5th February 2010. Earlier that season we had lost the away fixture by three goals to nil yet that scoreline fails to tell the whole story. Nomads battled heroically to keep the match scoreless until the 86th minute when Steve Abbot netted. A minute late Scott Ruscoe doubled the lead before Abbot added a third in the dying moments. It may have been a true reflection of The Saints’ superiority but harsh on the defeated team, nonetheless.

This is the fifth consecutive season in which our two clubs have met in Phase Two. Our ratio of wins to losses in the 18 fixtures since the start of the 2015/16 season is an improvement on the overall statistics but still leaves us trailing in our opponents wake. The tide has not yet turned. Season Home Away 1993/1994 3-2 2-2 1994/1995 1-2 3-4 1995/1996 0-0 2-1 1996/1997 0-1 2-2 1997/1998 2-2 0-0 1998/1999 2-3 0-2 1999/2000 2-4 0-1 2000/2001 1-2 0-2 2001/2002 0-0 1-5 2002/2003 0-1 0-2 2003/2004 1-1 2-3 2004/2005 0-7 1-2 2005/2006 0-2 0-2 2006/2007 0-0 0-4 2007/2008 1-3 1-3 2008/2009 0-2 1-2 2009/2010 1-0 0-3 2012/2013 1-3 1-5 2013/2014 0-4 0-5 2014/2015 1-5 0-2 2015/2016 2-0 0-2 Phase Two 2-1 0-0 2016/2017 0-3 0-3 Phase Two 2-1 0-1 2017/2018 2-2 0-3 Phase Two 0-1 1-3 2018/2019 1-0 0-2 Phase Two 0-2 0-1 2019/20 1-1 1-2

P W D L F A Pts Home 29 6 7 16 26 55 25 Away 29 1 4 24 18 70 7 Total 58 7 11 40 44 125 32