After their defeat at Slough Town, Welling United bounced back with a victory against Chelmsford City.

Now they travel to East Thurrock United on Easter Monday looking to cement third place at least whilst looking to pounce should second placed Woking slip up.

However, Steve King is well aware that East Thurrock won’t make it easy. Defeat would relegate the Rocks so they will be fighting tooth and nail to keep their survival hopes alive for their last game.

They will have been hurt by their defeat at St. Albans City on Good Friday. They were one nil up with five minutes remaining but conceded twice to lose the match. That was their third consecutive defeat and fifth in six games to cause them to be on the edge of the relegation precipice.

King will not underestimate them, especially striker Sam Higgins who is one of the Vanarama National South’s all time leading scorers. Welling supporters will also know a couple of former Wings, Rickie Hayles and Harry Lee, in the Rocks’ line-up.

Bradley Goldberg scored a brace as Welling won two-nil on Good Friday against a strong Chelmsford team. King was delighted with the first half performance but less so in the second period. “I wasn’t happy” he said. “I’ve told them in there. At two-nil I thought we were quite comfortable but I was disappointed about our second half performance.

“I’ve tried to not be too hard. They’re two points off second place. How can I be critical. I just felt they dropped their performance from eights to fours in the second half.”

There will be changes to the starting line-up as King confirmed “It’s not going to be the same team. We’ll change it around. We’ve now got a squad which is brilliant. I can take any of those centre halves out. Josh (Hill) didn’t even get on the bench. He will come in on Monday.

“You take Thierry (Audel) and Rich (Orlu) out and you put Josh (Hill) and Ach (Anthony Acheampong) in and it’s just as strong. Naz (Nassim L’Ghoul) I don’t think is quite there. As much as I’d love him to be there, I gave him a start last Saturday, I don’t think he’s quite there with the injury.

“Jordan (Gibbons)’s back fit now. He could come in for Sanchez. East Thurrock’s not going to be easy. They turned over Chelmsford the week before in a cup final so that’s a tough place to go.”

When the teams met earlier in the season, rather like Chelmsford on Good Friday the damage was done in the first half. Brendan Kiernan and Jack Jebb were on target before half an hour had passed. After that, Dan Wilks in the Welling goal was hardly troubled and Kiernan came closest to scoring again when his shot came back off the post.

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.