Swansea City FC Ladies' player Jess Williams
Jess Williams at Cwmbran Stadium (Photo: Cwmbran Life)

Swansea City FC Women’s player Jess Williams returned to Cwmbran today to play against her former club.

The Adran Premier League outfit played Cwmbran Celtic Ladies FC in the second round of the Bute Energy Welsh Cup and came away the 8-3 winners. Celtic were down 2-0 after 25 minutes but shocked Swansea by pulling back three goals in the next nine minutes to go ahead 3-2. The visitors didn’t waste time and were back in front 4-3 at half-time.

Three goals in the second half secured a comfortable win for Swansea. It was a special day for Swansea’s Chloe Chivers who netted a double hat trick.

Cwmbran Life spoke to Jess after the final whistle. The former Cwmbran High School pupil said: “It’s great to come back and see a few familiar faces. It’s always nice to come back and play the team I grew up with.”

She spoke about the current season and said: “It’s going well. We’re learning a few things, new coaches have come in. We’re settling in now and hopefully, if we carry on doing what we’re doing and we get the wins we can keep moving on from there.”

Jess signed for the Swans in 2018. She was voted the Swansea City Ladies’ Supporters’ Players of the 2022/23 Season.

Today’s goalscorers (minutes in brackets)

Cwmbran Celtic: Cerys Shipley (27, 31), Jade Crofts (34)

Swansea City: Chloe Chivers (2, 23, 39, 44, 61, 65), Fiona Anthony (Own Goal 56), Sophie Brisland-Hancocks (85)

Swansea City Women’s interim coach Chris Church said: “I’m happy that we’ve got through, we made hard work of it at times, but we did not panic and stayed composed. The players knew that we needed to roll our sleeves up a bit and calm ourselves down, and I think we did that in the second half.

“We have resilience in abundance in this team, even when things aren’t going quite right we knuckle down, and they put it right in their own way.

“I’ve learned a lot from this game, it was a really great learning tool for me and I think the squad will benefit from this because it keeps them in check and makes sure they are focused.”