Starting XI
1) Mark Manley
2) David Manley
3) Carl French
4) Courtney Philp
5) Craig Palfrey
6) Ross Gunter
7) Gavin Bishop
8) Gareth Bartlett
9) Stephen Mustey
10) Phil Gough
11) Carl Manley

Cardiff Northern started off with an under strength line-up and Radyr must have been confident of picking up their first points of the season.  Little did anyone realise that Radyr were about to come up against an on form Stephen Mustey who was undoubtedly fresh after his sending-off the day before.

Northern were camped in the Radyr half for the first five minutes and when a poor goal kick fell at Mustey's feet it was returned with interest for 1-0. The next 15 minutes were one-way traffic as Mustey scored again from a simple tap in, another from a header from a Carl Manley corner and Carl Manley finished a fine move for which Mustey returned the favour.  Radyr then scored with a spectacular long range effort with their only shot of the first half as Northern's back four failed to deal with the first Radyr attack. Mustey then had two goals disallowed for offside which seemed perfectly fair as the crosses were both cut back, first by Carl Manley from the right wing and then Gavin Bishop from the left.  Carl Manley earned and converted a penalty in off the right-hand post and soon after Phil Gough got in on the score charts when Manley, Mustey and Ross Gunter all combined to leave Phil with a simple tap-in.  Gavin went on a mazy run and hit the post and then had a good penalty appeal turned down before the referee brought the first half to an end with the score at 6-1.  With a bit more luck Northern could have been into double figures. Unsung heroes in this first half report are Ross Gunter who won everything in the centre of the field with some tigerish tackling and Gareth Bartlett who marked the Radyr playmaker out of the game.

Northern started the second half where they left off and within 20 minutes had got to 12-1 with 4 more Mustey goals, one of which was an excellent chip following a big kick from Mark Manley. Phil Gough got another tap-in and Gavin Bishop, who could have had 5 by this point finally hit the net.  At this point Tim Kampfenkel and Barrie Willacott came on for Gareth Bartlett and Gavin and Northern lost their momentum.  Willacott got booked inside 30 seconds and Tim struggled to fit in to a team that had been playing such fast and fluent football.  Courtney Philp got caught out as Radyr scored a second and in the last minute Radyr made it 3 following a handball which was missed by the ref, who at this point was obviously trying to do Radyr all the favours.  Full time came with the score at 12-3.

Northern showed with this performance how much better they can play as a team rather than as 11 individuals.

Subs: Timothy Kampfenkel, Barrie Willacott
Scorers: Stephen Mustey 7, Carl Manley 2, Phil Gough 2, Gavin Bishop
MOM: Stephen Mustey / Ross Gunter

* Match Reports represent the opinion of the author and in no way represent the opinions of CNFC.