Rory Fallon skied a chance to hand 10-man Swansea City an unlikely point with the last kick of the game at Brighton last night.Substitute Fallon had thrown Kenny Jackett’s men a lifeline when his sixth goal of the season cut the deficit to 3-2 in the first minute of stoppage time.<\/p>\n
But with 95 minutes on the clock, the former Swindon man scooped his sliding shot over the top after keeper Wayne Henderson had flapped at Alan Tate’s deep free-kick.<\/p>\n
In truth a draw would have been unjust. Swansea were outplayed by a Brighton side who had not won a home league game since mid September before last night.<\/p>\n
Dennis Lawrence’s second Swansea goal had brought them level early in the second period after Dean Cox had given the home side a deserved interval lead.<\/p>\n
But Alex Revell’s double sealed the points for Dean Wilkin’s deserving team.<\/p>\n
And so Swansea’s five-match unbeaten run came to an end as they struggled to compete in the second of two quickfire away fixtures yet again.<\/p>\n
Darren Pratley’s sending off – and his imminent suspension – just put the tin hat on a miserable night.<\/p>\n
The absence in the visiting ranks of Brighton hate figure Leon Knight was on all the natives’ lips prior to kick-off, but Swansea were much more concerned with Lee Trundle’s non-attendance.<\/p>\n
Knight and Trundle are Jackett’s two top-scorers this season – they have seven and eight goals respectively – but with the former in exile at Barnsley and the latter missing because of a thigh strain, Swansea had a hole to fill in attack.<\/p>\n
Bayo Akinfenwa was preferred to Fallon in the targetman role, while Ian Craney made his full debut as a second striker despite arriving in Wales primarily as a midfield reinforcement.<\/p>\n
The Bootle boy for the man from Huyton was one of three changes from the weekend FA Cup win at Darlington.<\/p>\n
Kevin Amankwaah was recalled in defence with Frenchman Sylvain Meslien bombed out completely after being substituted before half-time over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Akinfenwa was the other new face, starting here ahead of Tom Butler having replaced the unfortunate Irishman after just 13 minutes in the North East.<\/p>\n
Swansea were behind inside the first 100 seconds at Darlington, and they were slow out of the blocks once more at the opposite end of the country.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for Jackett’s defenders, they were not punished for leaving Revell unmarked at a corner as he steered his shot into the advertising boards to the right of Willy Gueret’s goal.<\/p>\n
But there was no let off when Brighton, who had started with greater purpose, came calling again 11 minutes later.<\/p>\n
Revell used his 6ft 4in frame to win an aerial dual with Alan Tate, playing in central defence to accommodate Amankwaah on the right.<\/p>\n
The knock-down fell to Cox near the left touchline and the little winger accepted the invitation to cut inside and line up a shot from outside the box.<\/p>\n
The result was devastating. Gueret appeared to have Cox’s swerving effort covered but pushed his left hand into thin air as the ball sailed into the top corner.<\/p>\n
Swansea’s goalkeeper slapped the sodden turf in frustration, perhaps with himself, perhaps with the defenders who had failed to close the goalscorer down.<\/p>\n
Jackett was looking pretty upset on the touchline, too, and his mood cannot have improved as his team ambled through the first period.<\/p>\n
There was little sign of the form which had seen them defeated only once in seven before this, and it was the mid-table Seagulls pressing again just before the half hour.<\/p>\n
This time Kerry Mayo pulled a left-wing corner back to Cox, who was all alone once more outside the Swansea box. Again he struck sweetly, but Pratley was on hand to block in front of Gueret.<\/p>\n
Only in the closing minutes of the first period did Swansea begin to show any attacking menace.<\/p>\n
First Kevin Amankwaah overlapped Leon Britton neatly down the right before drilling a deep cross which Akinfenwa met with a looping header which dropped onto the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Brighton broke from the clearance and caused some more panic in the visitors’ rearguard, but it was Swansea pressing hard for an equaliser just before the turnaround.<\/p>\n
Two Andy Robinson long-rangers were smothered by keeper Wayne Henderson, then the Scouser scooted round right-back Andrew Whing before flashing the ball across the face of goal.<\/p>\n
Sam Rents cleared with Britton closing in, and with that Swansea readied themselves for a few stern words in the dressing room.<\/p>\n
There was a substitution, too, with Fallon replacing Shaun MacDonald. The big Kiwi joined Akinfenwa in a heavyweight attack with Craney, who had struggled to make an impact up front, dropping back to his favoured midfield role.<\/p>\n
Jackett was looking for a big improvement.<\/p>\n
After 13 scrappy minutes he had not seen enough to suggest an equaliser was coming, so 17-year-old Chris Jones arrived in place of Akinfenwa in a second attacking change.<\/p>\n
The youngster’s first touch was a lay-off to Andy Robinson down the Swansea right, and his left-foot cross was met with a firm Lawrence header which Henderson was powerless to stop.<\/p>\n
The 6ft 7in defender was loitering up front after an earlier set-piece – and Jackett was delighted.<\/p>\n
Swansea were suddenly in the ascendancy, yet unforgivably they were behind again inside seven minutes after Amankwaah needlessly lunged in on Jake Robinson near the corner flag.<\/p>\n
Rents curled the resulting free-kick in left-footed and Revell got in front of Kevin Austin before beating the helpless Gueret with a diving header from six yards.<\/p>\n
Now Swansea had to dig deep to fight back for a second time, but they never threatened to do so.<\/p>\n
In fact it was Brighton searching for a killer goal and, after Gueret had denied Jake Robinson with a superb save, Revell helped himself to his 10th of the season to finish Swansea off.<\/p>\n
This time it was a corner which undid Jackett’s team. Dean Hammond’s unmarked header was scrambled clear, as was Revell’s first shot.<\/p>\n
But the ball came straight back to the former Braintree Town striker and he hammered home from 12 yards.<\/p>\n
Pratley picked up two yellow cards inside 18 minutes, the first for a high challenge and the second for shirt-pulling, to leave Swansea a man short for the closing moments.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, they pulled a goal back when Fallon stroked home from close range and then had another chance through the same player.<\/p>\n
But this was a night when Swansea got what they deserved. Nothing.<\/p>\n
thisissouthwales.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rory Fallon skied a chance to hand 10-man Swansea City an unlikely point with the last kick of the game at Brighton last night.Substitute Fallon had thrown Kenny Jackett’s men a lifeline when his sixth goal of the season cut the deficit to 3-2 in the first minute of stoppage time. But with 95 minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}