Following Welling United’s first win of the season, The Wings’ manager, Brad Quinton, remained grounded but was happy with the outcome.

Immediately after the game he said “I still think we’re in a false position. We’ve been giving away penalties and silly second balls in and around the box and it’s cost us where we are. We’ve had to work hard, we’ve done that in training and I think the performance today was solid and we looked a threat again.

“Every game we look like we’re going to score.” he continued. “The defensive unit was organised today. They (Hemel Hempstead Town) threw everything but the kitchen sink at us and we met it well. We scored some cracking goals again and I was so, so pleased for the boys. They’ve worked hard in training and they deserve their three points.

“Conditions were really, really tough first half. A gale force wind, rain, the ball not rolling right on the surface. It’s new, but they dealt with it. No team’s scored a great, great goal against us. These are the things that we’ve spoken about but you have to get out of this rut but we’ve worked hard and I think everyone can see that.”

There had been heavy rain before the game and it teemed down at times in the first period so had the game been scheduled to have been played on grass, it may not have gone ahead. The surface presented a further challenge to Quinton’s team. “It’s new.” he said “Looking at how the ball runs, it doesn’t roll true so the players had to get used to that as well as the conditions but it’s an important performance for the boys.

I’ve absolutely battered them in training because of how the second half was against Chelmsford. I won’t accept that and from the two performances of late and the desire and hard work is going to carry on all the way through to Christmas. We take two games at a time and we’re positive with four points from the last two, gutted that we didn’t get the three on Tuesday night.

“It’s four or five teams we’ve played on astroturf” he continued. “There’s probably eight or nine so we’re getting them out of the way early. You have to deal with it, it’s possibly the way forward. I get it. No excuses. At the end of the day it’s a game of football. Two teams have to play on it but I thought Lyle Della-Verde, Ryan Blackman, Ade, Mustapha, Lexus, Lewis Hobbs, were absolutely immense today. They met everything head on today, chests, shoulders back. I was really pleased with their performance.”

At half time, Quinton made a substitution taking off loanee Ayo Tanimowo and replacing him with Stefan Ilic. Although, there was no change to the shape, he felt it necessary explaining “He’s had a hard week at Brighton and it was a tactical change that we had to do. I can’t complain with what Ayo can do. He’s a class player. We made a tactical change and I think that it paid off.”

Although, Welling didn’t get off to the best start to the season, Quinton is not overly concerned. “We haven’t had the rub of the green.” he said “No team’s been head and shoulders, battered us or been head and shoulders in class above us. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot and that’s led to goals and teams winning. We’ve got a great squad. We’ve got a young squad.

“I made a tactical change on Tuesday of dropping my captain and I’m not afraid of doing that. I’m not afraid of playing anyone who I feel is capable of doing a job and we win together and you could see that the players were proud of their performance.

“It’s been one of those season’s. People don’t understand what’s going on with Covid and players adjusting to managers and coaches as well as no fans. You all want everything going straight away. If you see teams working hard and losing by the odd goal, you hold your hands up. One thing I won’t accept is the performance that happened in the second half against Chelmsford and you’ve seen the response.

“Where you have stop start stop start you work them harder (in training) and you think am I doing too much. We’ve had a stop start pre season because you think you’re back in season, then you stop, then you’re back in season, these are all the things that everyone has to try to adjust to. It’s something out of the norm.”

Now, Quinton wants Welling to build on the four points claimed over the week. “It’s important that we keep the momentum going. The hard work is not going to stop for me. The hard work is not going to stop for the team. We work on two games at a time, starting with Billericay on Tuesday and we’ll be looking for six points.”