Cirencester Town 0

Bristol City Academy 2

TWO goals in the last five minutes gave the youngsters of Bristol City a flattering win at the Corinium Stadium on Saturday.

For the first 20 minutes it was literally men against boys as Cirencester barely gave the Bristol kids a kick.

But despite the wholesale change in personnel since last year, the age-old inability to convert chances and, late on, an uncanny knack of conceding soft goals, was still much in evidence.

There was nonetheless plenty to admire, particularly in a first half before numerous changes made for a disjointed second period.

Gary Thorne enjoyed a commanding game at the back, while triallists Steve Davies and Ben Pugh can have done their chances of earning a contract no harm at all.

Davies’ direct running and quick feet were the highlight of the first half and he nearly crowned it with 25-yarder after a Matt Williams lay-off which whistled just over the bar.

And it would be easy to envisage Pugh’s left-footed free kicks and corners providing ample ammunition for captain-for-the-day Julian Alsop in future games.

Ciren could have been ahead in the third minute when Williams found himself clear with time and space, but he didn’t quite find the target with his attempted lob.

Williams was involved again in one of Ciren’s best moves when after a nice dummy by man mountain Alsop, he laid it off to Nathan Haisley, whose attempted curler just didn’t test Bristol keeper Tom Bradley enough.

Despite having limited possession, City still created four chances in the first half, all for their big No 9 Marlon Jackson.

Two shots he put just over the bar, but he was particularly wasteful when free in the box on a couple of other occasions, though credit must be given to Tom King for saving in the 35th minute after Jackson had dithered too long.

Alsop should have done better soon after the kick off in the second half when put clear, but arguably Ciren’s best chance came just before the hour mark when Haisley did not connect properly with a header on the six-yard line from a nice Davies free kick.

Otherwise, Haisley put in a full 90 minutes of typically committed effort, whereas concentration and fitness levels elsewhere in the team were exposed late on.

After Jackson had slipped substitute Andy Minturn down the left his cross was well controlled by Robert Stambolziev, only for his sweetly-struck shot to narrowly clear the bar.

Stambolziev made no mistake, however, when a simple ball over the top deceived the Ciren back line with four minutes to play.

Then Academy goalie Adam Miller totally misjudged the bounce of a ball he was attempting to head clear just outside the area and Joe Lennox was on hand to tap the ball into an empty net two minutes later.

Town’s two games this week (Wootton Bassett, Wednesday and Haverfordwest, Saturday) should include the first sighting of new right back Lee Spalding and an unnamed central midfielder, both of whom trained with the team before going on holiday.

Cirencester: Tom King (Miller 75), Thompson, Pugh (Stevens 60), Thorne, Metitiri (Minturn 45), Dean (Etheridge 55), Davies (Bailey 64), Haisley, Alsop capt (Robertson 55), Williams (Ngwa 45), Heath