Cheltenham Town 1-2 Cardiff City: Max Watters strikes late to maintain pre-season winning streak for Bluebirds

Cardiff City maintained their 100 per cent record in pre-season by snatching a late win over Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road.

Liam Sercombe's effort just before half-time gave the Robins a deserved lead during sweltering conditions in Gloucestershire, although youngster Jack Leahy would have levelled matters just moments later were it not for a stunning save from goalkeeper Shaun MacDonald, who did brilliantly to tip the youngster's crashing drive onto the crossbar.

Cardiff rallied, and Mark Harris did restore parity just after the break, lashing home from the spot after being fouled by MacDonald inside the box, with Steve Morison then making 11 changes to his side as the clock ticked over the hour mark.

And Watters, one of those changes, was on hand two minutes from time to slot home the winner and maintain his side's pre-season winning streak.

But despite the victory, Morison may still be reluctant to read too much into this game from a performance point of view, although there were definite positives.

Tom Sang's encouraging showing, for example, might well have played him further into contention ahead of the season, while there were also accomplished performances from Curtis Nelson and Ryan Wintle.

Joe Ralls, Callum O'Dowda, Romaine Sawyers, Sheyi Ojo and newest arrival Cedric Kipre were all given their first taste of pre-season action, and also showed decent glimpses of their capabilities.

However, there was still no sign of Rubin Colwill, and without clarification on the reason behind his absence, questions are likely to grow. Those questions may well have reached a crescendo during the opening 10 to 15 minutes as Cardiff struggled to find any sort of meaningful creative spark, although the scorching conditions almost