Local derbies can throw up surprise results but there was no shock at Park View Road when Ebbsfleet United defeated Welling United. After the match, Welling manager Warren Feeney expressed his views.

“We know that they’re a good side.” He said “They’re one of the big hitters in the league but it’s difficult when you’re down there. I’m not going to wave a magic wand but we had a game plan of what we wanted to do. I thought it worked perfectly but five minutes of craziness has probably cost us the game and that’s with the free kick and the penalty given away.”

Although the result went against his side, Feeney wasn’t downbeat with the performance. He said “I don’t think that they outplayed us or they outmatched us. They’ve got quality but whenever you’ve got a budget like Ebbsfleet, you’re going to be able to bring quality in. When someone can bring someone like Dominic Poleon on, and I signed Dominic at Newport, you know they’ve got good players. I thought we competed very well but when you score two goals at home, you’re disappointed that you’re not picking up anything.”

At this time of the season, nothing is easy, as Feeney knows “It’s going to be tough.” He admitted “We’re down where we are for a reason. You ask the other teams around us. It’s hard to win football games but we’ve got to stay in there. We’ve got to pick them up, give them belief, get a couple of the injuries back and get them going and hopefully, we can pick up the results to get us where we want to be.”

Welling scored the opener early on when Tom Derry headed home from Harvey Bradbury’s cross. Feeney said “I keep saying that if you put balls in the box you score goals. You watch Real Madrid the other night. They put balls in the box and Benzema scores. Football is a simple game. It’s hard whenever people try and complicate the game. 

“It’s not the way I want to play. I want to play football right, but at the end of the day it’s needs must and I thought that if you put balls in the box you’ve got to make people defend and he (Derry) took his goal very, very well. It was a great strikers finish to get across his defender but I think, probably, we stopped doing that and you could probably hear me shout about putting balls in between the sticks. If you’re going to score goals there’s no point for strikers when the ball’s going outside the sticks because it’s harder to score and I think that’s the thing that disappointed me after.”

Attacking and defensive play from set pieces are something on which Feeney is keen to continue to work “If you look at the majority of goals, they’re mistakes from set plays but you’ve got to have that desire to go and head the ball, to go and score the goal and that’s the big thing.” He said.

“You can do set plays until the rain comes in but if you don’t want to go and put your head on the ball and score or clear it you’re going to end up with goals in. That’s one thing that I said to the boys. You’ve got to be ruthless at both ends.”

Injuries are not helping the cause and Taylor Curran pulled up when stopping an Ebbsfleeet attack. “I think it’s probably his hamstring. He was running back chasing a player and his hamstring has gone. We’ll have to assess it and see what his recovery period is going to be. Ben Margetson is back at Bromley to get assessed by the physio there.”  

Feeney’s final word was for the supporters “Stick with us.” He said “I thought the fans were superb today and got behind the boys. We could hear them. There’s a lot of football to be played. We need them right until the end.”

With tough matches coming up at Eastbourne Borough on Good Friday and at home to Dorking Wanderers on Easter Monday, he will be hoping that the supporters continue to back his team to act as twelfth man.  

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.