Ten-man Welling United claimed a well merited point at Concord Rangers and after the game, Wings’ manager Warren Feeney gave his views.

“I said to my boys, if you play like that there, you’re going to go places.” He said: “They’re on the back of three games won and we played with ten men for seventy minutes of the game.”

Sid Nelson was dismissed for two very harsh yellow card offences in three minutes and Feeney was forced into making a change be bringing on Manny Parry at the expense of Ade Azeez.

Feeney said: “Someone had to be sacrificed, I think that it was the right thing to do. I’ve got to make the decision to bring a centre back on with our game plan. Ade is a striker but he was doing a job for me playing as a left sided and unfortunately, he was the one to be sacrificed. We’ve a good bunch here.”

Feeney continued: “We didn’t change from the way we wanted to play. We got the ball and they showed us great respect. We were unlucky when Payney (Stefan Payne) hit the bar in the first ten minutes. Our boys were passionate today. We had a game plan. They worked their socks off. Their fitness levels looked fantastic and I said to them in there, no matter how you look at it, it’s a great point.”

There was no doubt that the red card changed the game but Feeney was happy with how his team reacted saying: “We were quite clearly in control of the game when we had eleven men. I thought we were playing some good football. We knocked the ball around the park. If you look at the fans at the end, the fans clapped the boys off the pitch and that’s all I want to see.”

One player, Devonte Aransibia, left the club on Friday and others are expected to follow as Feeney looks to continue working on his squad.

“We’re building a whole new club here, a whole new regime.” He added: “If you get performances like that, we’ll go far. We want a competitive team to be competitive in this league so we’ve got to do a wee bit of wheeling and dealing. Devonte went yesterday. He wants to play football but I couldn’t guarantee him a game so I wish him all the best at Tonbridge (Angels).

“I’m not going to panic but we can always look to strengthen. It’s a forty-six game season, and there’s still 29 games to go in the season so you have to. Yas (Yaser Kasim) has come in and we’ve flogged him as he had no pre-season. The loan market is very difficult with the big teams because they don’t really want to send them any lower than League One, League Two, and occasionally the Conference.”

“It’s a great grounding. Kids need to go and get experience and learn to get beaten up and Welling can give them a great grounding.”

Youngster Cameron Andrews was given his full league debut, the first player from the new Under 23s set-up to make the breakthrough, and he impressed. Feeney was delighted and added: “We’ve got a 23s that’s just started. There’s going to be teething problems but you need a youth system and that’s all part of bonding the club together but it’s going to take time.

“Wee Cameron’s at the stage where he’s ready and if we can bring kids through and they’re good enough, it’s good for us because I know the board don’t want me to keep picking up the phone and asking for more money to bring another player in. If we can bring the kids through, it’s good for us and a great pathway from the academy.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.