Caernarfon Town fall to late defeat at champions The New Saints

The Canaries were undone late on in front of the S4C Sgorio cameras after coming from a goal behind, with a huge away following expected for their final top flight outing before the Europa League playoffs at Bala Town on Friday night (7.45pm).

Cofis’ stopper Alex Ramsay had to be at his best to deny Kurtis Byrne an early goal for the home side, with Gareth Edwards firing a header straight at the keeper at the other end during a lively opening to the contest.

Scott Ruscoe’s men showed their class to break the deadlock on 12 minutes when Byrne met a superb delivery by Jon Routledge to nod past Ramsay and give them a slender lead.

As has been the case for the majority of the campaign, the visitors bounced back in impressive fashion and restored parity to the score-line in 18 minutes when talisman Darren Thomas latched on to a Cai Jones header before creating some space for himself and unleashing a ferocious strike into the top corner from 25 yards.

Ramsay was in excellent form just before the break to deny Dean Ebbe on a pair of occasions to ensure there was all to play for at the interval, and the second period saw Jones narrowly failing to get on the end of a Jamie Breese cross for the away side on the hour mark.

The outstanding Thomas almost put the Canaries ahead on 76 minutes when he took off from inside his own half, beating a host of opposition players before seeing his thumping long-range effort crash the upright and away from danger.

This miss would prove to be telling as the hosts regained the initiative after 77 minutes when experienced marksman Greg Draper was sent through and finished clinically, and Byrne notched his second of the evening in the closing stages to round off the scoring.