KINMEL Bay Football Club has seen a changing of the guard, with reserve manager Alex Craig stepping up to first team boss after the mutual departure of club legend Frank Woods.

Craig wasted no time in recruiting Leon Field as joint-manager along with the return of highly-rated coach-manager Andy Thomas.

Also added to the management team is Paul Jaycock, who brings a wealth of playing experience.

The new management team wasted no time, with only a week to prepare and limited numbers ahead of its first match against an in-form Llannefydd on Saturday (January 8).

The team took a mixture of first team and reserve players to face Llannefydd, with the hosts running out 7-0 winners.

Rhyl Journal: Kinmel Bay FC unfortunately suffered a 7-0 defeat to Llannefydd on SaturdayKinmel Bay FC unfortunately suffered a 7-0 defeat to Llannefydd on Saturday

A brilliant headed finish from Luke Appleby opened the scoring, and though Kinmel Bay carried on trying to find an equaliser, Llannefydd were simply too good for them, playing some fantastic football, with the Bay struggling to match their fitness and technicality.

Although Bay had five really good chances, the Llannefydd goalkeeper kept them out; though they could easily have gone in level at 3-3 at half time, rather 3-0 down, had they finished their chances.

The second half brought more of the same; the Bay fought well for about 25 minutes and kept it to 3-0, but unfortunately their fitness got the better of them and in the last 20 minutes couldn’t match Llannefydd, who ended up triumphing 7-0.

New manager Alex Craig said: “Take nothing away from Bay; we fought until the end, and (there are) a lot of things we can now work on.

“We have a very good young team in the making, and hopefully in the coming weeks, we can show what this young squad can do.”

The man of the match award for Kinmel Bay was given to 17-year-old Oliver Gray.