Greg Draper knows a thing or two about goals. The 33-year-old knows a thing or more about scoring them for The New Saints. Any poor sod who found himself handed the thankless task of marking the former striker between 2011 and 2021 in the Welsh top flight can attest to that.
The thing about scoring a lot of goals — and Draper did score a lot: a club-record 163 in 252 appearances in all competitions for the Welsh Prem juggernauts to be exact, roughly 14% of the club's total across its 30-year existence — is there runs the risk of diluting the experience: of watering down the rapture a goal inherently incites, especially when the goal isn’t, technically, of one’s own doing.
Yet, when Emily Ridge buried TNS Women’s fourth goal against Abergavenny in the 88th minute on February 5 and consequently fired her side into the Adran Premier top-four on the final day of phase one on goals scored, that risk transpired to be total rubbish.
