Swansea City Under-19s Cardiff FAW Youth Cup

Swansea City Under-19s booked their place in the next round of the FAW Youth Cup on Thursday with a dominating 3-0 win over rivals Cardiff.

In a replay of last seasons' final the young Swans - which included a mix of youth and experience - started the better side at a rain soaked Landore.

Early chances fell to frontmen Kyle Copp and Owain Jones in the opening ten minutes as both forced saves from Cardiff keeper Scott Coulghlan.

At the other end Swans goalkeeper Lewis Thomas kept out the Cardiff attack to keep the scores level.

The home side broke the deadlock when a whipped in free-kick from Kyle Copp deflected off Cardiff defender Ash Baker for an unfortunate own goal just after 20 minutes.

Despite chances from both sides the Swans held their lead at the break.

The Swans continued to attack in the second-half, Mael Davies and Brandon Griffiths each coming close within minutes of the restart.

Meanwhile, Cardiff substitute Abdi Noor saw his powerful effort saved by Thomas.

Swansea doubled their lead on the hour mark when substitute Brandon Griffith latched onto a ball from Dan James in the box to find space and fire low into the bottom corner.

The young Swans had a host of further chances soon after and could have had more goals had it not been for Coulghlan in the Cardiff goal keeping out efforts from Kyle Copp, Liam Cullen and two superb chances from Owain Jones.

Continued pressure did see the home side grab a third when 17-year-old defender Joe Rodon headed home a corner a minute into stoppage time to secure hard-fought win for the young Swans.

SWANS U19s: Lewis Thomas, Mael Davies, Aaron Lewis, Jack Evans, Keston Davies (Capt) (Conor Quigley, HT), Joe Rodon, Kieran Evans (Brandon Griffiths, 30), Marco Dulca, Owain Jones, Kyle Copp, Daniel James (Liam Cullen, 75)

SUBS NOT USED: Alex Lang, Tom Dyson

Coach Chris Llewellyn expressed his delighted with the win, labelling the result a huge step for the young Swans as they look to retain the FAW Youth Cup for a seventh successive year.

"We are over-the-moon with the result," he said.

"It was a tough game, especially with the weather conditions but the team battled through the heavy rain and ran out comfortable winners.

"We treated it like any other game looking to build on from Saturday's league win over Norwich.

"We looked to play a creative attacking style and press them high up the pitch, the players have taken that on board and I think we did that. 

"We scored some well worked goals and could have had more, Owain Jones has been very unlucky their keeper had pulled off some world class saves to keep them in it at times.

"Overall we are very pleased with the win and now look forward to the next round in the competition."