HUW GRIFFITHS joked that he would quit if he didn’t win the Welsh Premier League manager of the year award after leading Cefn Druids into Europe.

The Ancients booked their place in the Europa League by beating Cardiff Met 1-0 in the play-off final at The Rock, striker James Davies’ first-half strike enough to secure a memorable win.

And Griffiths believes it should be enough for him to land the league’s top honour ahead of the likes of TNS boss Scott Ruscoe and Connah’s Quay Nomads’ manager Andy Morrison.

“If I don’t get manager of the year I’m retiring,” said Griffiths. “If we’d lost it would still have been the biggest achievement this season.

“We were favourites to go down at the start of the season - I’d love to see what the odds were - and now we are in the Europa League.

“My wife said to me when we were driving home ‘who would have thought we would be back in the Europa League?’ It was great getting into the Europa League through the Welsh Cup, but this is very special.”

Griffiths, who was hoping to have a “glass or two” of Champagne to celebrate his side’s achievements, reserved special praise for his players, staff and, most impressively, Cardiff Met boss Christian Edwards.

“I’m sat here texting everyone back,” said Griffiths. “I’ve got close to 100 messages and the most pleasing one is from Christian.

“The way he and his players behaved after the game is a credit to him and the club, and he’s sent me a lovely message, which is very much appreciated.

“No-one can know how he and his players are feeling after losing a second play-off final in a row, but the message he’s sent shows what he’s all about.”

Druids captain Neil Ashton, meanwhile, described winning the play-off final to qualify for the Europa League as the proudest moment of his career.

“I think it’s the proudest moment of my football career, it really is,” he declared after lifting the trophy.

“I’ve been playing a long time and I’m coming into the last few years I’ve got left, but that tops it all off.

“For where we were at the beginning of the season and people thinking that we were going to get relegated to now be going to have a game in Europe is just fantastic.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the lads, the staff and everyone else who has been involved.”

On his side’s performance against Cardiff Met, Ashton believes it was a professional job from the Ancients.

He reflected: “In the first-half it was (a good performance). In the first 10 minutes they probably dominated the game and then we grew into the match, had some chance and scored a very good goal.

“We then had a few chances where we could have killed the game off and we didn’t and you are always susceptible to conceding and they missed a really good chance on half time.

“They probably dominated the second-half. We were fighting for a 0-0 draw in the second-half and we managed to do it, but it was tough out there with the heat and the pitch is very dry and hot.

“We played well, but we could have been better and we were lucky to get the win.”

Ashton’s words were echoed by boss Griffiths, who said: “I think we deserved to win. They had a lot of the ball in the second-half, but they didn’t trouble us too much.

“We could have killed the contest off in the first-half, even though they did have a chance just before half time.

“They second-half was poor, but we needed to get the job done and we did.”