The Vetch pitch looked excellent - well done to the groundstaff. The newly painted areas were an improvement but I'm not sure about the yellow panels at the top of the NB?
The crowd was announced at 2369 - so at £5 per head (no reductions for children), the club received a welcome cash injection of just over £11,500.

Cusack fielded his strongest team (I assume after reading the Holland Tour reports) and lined up with a 3-5-2 formation.

Palace playing in black looked to be quite a physical side, and so it proved in the second half when several dubious challenges (from both sides) ignited passions that could easily have led to sendings off.

After a fairly tame start, it was Swansea who looked the more dangerous. Their first opening came when Williams won a flick on down the right and Thomas's inside pass to Reid allowed a fine shot which had goal written all over it - save for the Palace keeper's excellent dive and parry over to keep it out.

Palace's clear superiority began to tell after this and after 20 minutes had taken the lead. A foray down the left saw Jenkins unable to stop the cross and the diminutive Dai Smith found himself outjumped on the far post to set up a shot that Freestone did well to parry. Unfortunately, Gareth Williams was quick enough to force the rebound past Freestone's near post from quite an acute angle.

Palace had further chances - again forcing Smith D to challenge taller opponents on the far post but Freestone continued his excellent form of last season.

But on the half hour mark, Palace went two up. The Swans defence were split (not for the first time) and Butterfield was fed the ball in the right of the area. Having eluded all defenders, he made his way toward Freestone's near post and despite Roger getting a hand to the ball, the power in the shot carried the ball into the net.

Williams had a great chance to put Swansea only one in arrears but when put clear on the right, his charge at the goal resulted in him pulling his shot across his body and behind for a goal kick.

The second half was a dour affair with a few fights breaking out on the pitch. The substitutions were made too late to change things IMO and had no effect on the pattern of play despite positional changes being evident.

A pretty disappointing performance from the Swans - but they were playing a higher quality team in Palace - so perhaps not fair to read too much into this.

The tactics were less than entertaining with very few balls being carried down the wings. There was a "clump" of five players in midfield most of the time and the pattern was to chip it over the top or try and play through into space on the ground for the wing backs to chase. Neither of these met with much success.

The bright spot for me was James Thomas who looked strong on the ball when close to goal and (from what I remember) got all his shots on target.

There were also many disappointing points which I won't go into now, as it would be based on just one game against superior opposition.

Swansea City 0 Crystal Palace 2 - Dai Smith

Well ..... it was back to the Vetch for us usual suspects, a crowd of about 2,500 braved the rain, full of optimism and anticipation about our new signings . The side was very similar to the one that was fielded against Den Haag, the only one change being John Williams replaced David Moss as James Thomas' strike partner.

The Swans probably had the better of the opening exchanges. The palace goalkeeper needed to be alert to firstly save a Paul Reid shot and from the corner that was conceded, a header from Jason Smith was also blocked.

From this point onwards Palace had the better of the chances and only some excellent goalkeeping from Roger kept the score down. Palace scored two goals before half time.

The first goal after Freestone made an excellent save from a long range shot but then could do nothing as Gareth Williams blasted the rebound home from close range.

After half an hour Palace doubled their lead. A strike from Danny Butterfield from 10 yards out gave Roger no chance.

The second half deteriorated into much more of a 'third division affair' with tackles flying in and players squaring up to each other. The most over-weight referee I have seen officiating a game at the Vetch was in danger of losing control.

For the last 20 mins or so we had a chance to view new signing Jamie Wood and David Moss. Wood definitely won my award for being the toughest player of the day, after chasing a ball towards the North bank touch line, failed to stop himself in time and went hurtling over the wall to a six foot drop onto the terraces. The crown gasped ....... would he be seriously injured? ....... Good God No! just dusted himself down - No treatment necessary - then carried on with the game.

The Swans probably had the best of the last 10 minutes or so with chances falling to both Wood and Thomas. However, we never really looked like scoring.

Some observations.

• Liked the look of Thomas up front. Sincerely hope he can do the business for us this season.
• I thought Mumford had a poor game by his standards.
• Definitely the fattest referee to grace the Vetch.
• Jason Smith looks sharp and back at full fitness.
• Worrying lapses in concentration in the defence led to two goals being conceded (could have been more)
• The side certainly doesn't look so light weight as last year.
• My namesake David Smith did not do much to impress me this evening.
• Thought Terry Evans had a good game.

In summary, Palace were a much better side than us, but lets not forget we are two divisions below them and are not typical of the type of sides we will be facing this season.

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