By CCFCSleepingGiant.com
August 14 2002

Lennie Lawrence described the opening 20 minutes of last night's game as the best of his six-month Ninian Park reign. He was delighted with the way in which we came out of blocks against Vale. News from CCFCSleepingGiant.com

"We still haven't walloped anyone at home but it looked like we were going to do it in the opening 20 minutes tonight," said Lawrence, speaking to the Western Mail.

City were two goals to the good after just nine minutes of last night's Division Two clash. We could even have been three-up after 15 minutes, but Graham Kavanagh missed the chance to open his account from 12 yards.

"The standard we played in the first 20 minutes you just can't sustain for 90 minutes but you've got to try and do it for 60 minutes."

He added, "This was a funny old game. We were thinking we could have been 3-0 up after 15 minutes. I thought they had a player harshly sent off. People think you should go on to score five against 10 men, but that doesn't happen.

"We took too long to get over the setback of missing a penalty and then conceding one.

"We went flat before half-time and we spoke about it during the break. We started the second half modestly but eventually we got going again.

"The game was won in the first 15 minutes and I'm pleased about that. If you offered me a 3-1 win before the game I would have settled for that.

"Credit to Port Vale, they worked very hard until the last 15 minutes.

"I chose Andy Legg instead of Layton Maxwell and I think I got that right. It was an impressive performance from Andy and he's in the team for Saturday."

Lawrence certainly made the right decision in playing Leggy. Maxwell is a good player, but Legg, now 36, runs himself into the ground for the team. His energy, particularly for his age, is phenomenal. His enthusiasm spreads throughout the team.

After 14 minutes of last night's match, it looked like a six or seven-nil tonking was on the cards. However, Kavanagh's poor penalty put a dampener on things, but you can't complain about a 3-1 victory.