Cwmbran crash at home

Cwmbran's Euro rivals have included Celtic

Cwmbran Town 0-4 Slovan Bratislava.

Cwmbran Town suffered a comprehensive defeat in the Uefa Cup preliminary round at the Cardiff Athletics Stadium and have a mountain to climb in the second leg in two weeks' time.

Their chances of victory were badly damaged early on when defender Dean Philpott was sent off for violent conduct after just 12 minutes.

The Slovakians were 2-0 up by half-time and strolled their way through the rest of the match in front of a crowd of only around 400.

Cwmbran, with their home pitch out of action, will now be forced to play League of Wales fixtures at Port Talbot for the most part of the season.

In this match they had little crowd support and the early dismissal was a huge blow.

At times, Bratislava seemed to be using the match as little more than a training exercise and had enjoyed what seemed to be a harsh decision against Philpott for an apparent head-butt on Branislav Obzera.

Philpott had an early chance as he headed a free-kick wide, but after the sending off the visitors became more adventurous and finally scored on 40 minutes when Dragan Mojic headed in a free-kick that had been helped on.

Unstoppable

The second goal came right on the interval as Obzera took advantage of a rebound to beat goalkeeper Gary Wager from close range.

Cwmbran were trying desperately hard, but made little headway despite some neat passing and were grateful that Robert Vittek missed two good chances for the Slovaks.

Wager had defended his goal with several good saves and Richard Carter cleared one off the line, with Obzera being replaced before Vittek forced a fine diving save from the Welsh team's keeper.

There was no further scoring until seven minutes from time when the impressive Marek Ujlaky played a superb pass that Vittek could not miss - and the scorer was immediately substituted.

Cwmbran attempted to play their way through, but found the visiting defence too strong and further goals looked certain to come.

Thanks mainly to Wager in goal, only one further goal was scored, inevitably created by Ujlaky, who pulled the ball back for Milos Sobona to crash in an unstoppable shot.