Relegation threatened Welling United missed the opportunity to close the gap between them and safety when held at home by Taunton Town. It is four points from Rod Stringer’s first two games in charge.

They came into the game four points behind the Peacocks but were held to a goal-less draw meaning that there was no change. It was just Rod Stringer’s second game in charge and he gave his views after the match.

“It’s a fair result.” he said. “I think we had some good spells (in the) second half where we looked like we could of capitalised on something there, a couple of great goalmouth balls whipped across the front there but (in the first half we weren’t fluent. I don’t think that we were anywhere near the levels that we were on Tuesday night. I’ve been around long enough to know that the tempo in midweek games compared to when it’s a dull Saturday afternoon, it’s hard to try and get those tempos the same.”

After the half time break, Welling looked more lively. Stringer said “We had a lot more of a go at it. The lights were on and it gets a bit darker and it’s a bit more like a midweek game. I was just disappointed with the way we shifted the ball. We didn’t shift the ball quickly enough. We were too pedestrian. I didn’t think in the midfield we were brave enough. We tweaked the system at half time and we really started forcing it. We went down to ten men and we had to re-galvanise to a four-four-one. I had three nineteen year old boys on the pitch at the time.”

One crumb of comfort was that Welling kept a clean sheet for the first time since October. “Clean sheets will always guarantee something out of the game.” said the Welling manager.

“I’d have preferred to have a clean sheet and three points. I think you have to give credit to them (Taunton). They’ve come here and done a job but I’m disappointed that we didn’t play like we did in our best spell more consistently.”

Talking about the red card shown to Dominic Odusanya, Stringer added “If it’s an old tackle back in the day, there’s no cards but in this modern day of football, although he won the ball, it’s a tackle with excessive force and they will send you off for that. I don’t know if he followed through but I’m disappointed and I just said to them, we can’t win games with ten men. I need eleven men on the pitch and I felt for that period of the game, if we’d had eleven men on the pitch we would have got over the line.”

Since Stringer took over, Welling have won four points out of six. He said “On Tuesday night I was over the moon. I thought we were outstanding. We went down to ten men and won the game. I just said to them ‘where was the void between Tuesday night and today?’ I felt second half, with that spell that we had, was a lot more like Tuesday. We’ve had two different type games. I thought Hampton were very good and we got the win, and I thought these today were very rigid and they’re fighting for their lives.

“I watched them (the Welling players) in two games (before being appointed as manager). I watched them at Chelmsford and I watched them at Hemel so I’ve seen enough there. Yes, we need recruitment. Yes, we need two players in, that’s for sure.

“I was really pleased with the lad that came in from Charlton today, (Jason) Adigun, some good little moves, but he got thrown in at the deep end because he had to go and play wide right.

“I had one other signing that was going to come in for today from a league two club, which unfortunately never got done but that’s pending so we are working hard to try and get people in the building but you can’t just keep bringing people in, you’ve got to let people go and at the moment, these lot are resident. They’ve got their deals and it’s not easy to just release people because there’s a lot of contracted players here.”

Despite the difficulties, Stringer is relishing the challenge. He said “I’ve never been in a relegation battle. I’ve always been at the other end. It is my first time in sunny Kent but other than keep paying two pounds fifty to go backwards and forwards through the toll, which isn’t great news, I want to come to different areas. I managed Bishop’s Stortford in the Conference North and what fun and great times we had in doing those journeys so I’m happy to come over.”

Images courtesy of Dave Budden