Any remaining cup hopes were ended for Welling United by defeat at Havant and Waterlooville.
Despite struggling in the league below, the hosts deserved their victory on a pitch, that in some areas, resembled the beach at nearby Southsea.
After the visitors had made a promising start, they fell behind when a long free kick was flicked on to an unmarked Josh Hill, and he stabbed home from inside the six yard box.
That was short-lived however, and Welling responded with a fine goal on eleven minutes. Ben Jefford exchanged passes with George Porter before pulling it back for Reece Harris to fire home from twenty yards.
New signing Marek Rodak then made a double save to stop Welling from falling behind again. First he beat out a shot from James Hayter then he blocked Shamir Mullins’ follow up.
His next save from Dan Strugnell’s curler was much more comfortable and the teams went in at the break on level terms.
Strugnell was in action at the other end just after half time when clearing off the line after Harris had lobbed Ryan Young in the Hawks’ goal.
Xavier Vidal and Harry Lee both tested Young with long range efforts and although less than convincingly, he managed to keep them out.
Scott Donnelly failed to trouble Rodak from outside the area before Young saved from Harry Osborne.
Kadell Daniel then went on a run across goal before feeding Harris, but he was unable to keep his shot down.
Lee Bradbury, the Hawks’ manager, then made a change that paid immediate dividends. Ben Swallow came on and made an immediate impact. Breaking down the left, he cut in and exchanged passes with Donnelly giving him room to cross from the right to Shamir Mullings who powered in a header from close range.
Crest-fallen Welling looked distraught and failed to create another opportunity until injury time when Daniel got in behind the Hawks’ defence only to see his powerful drive well saved by Young.
Welling manager Loui Fazakerley was disappointed with the performance once again. “It’s a game that we should have been able to come here and win.but the performance was nowhere near good enough. Our quality on the ball wasn’t good enough and our decision making wasn’t good enough.
“It definitely hurts a lot as this is a cup we saw us going further in, a lot further in. We’ve come to a team that’s in a league below and we expected to come here and win.”
Some Welling supporters vented their frustrations at the end of the game. Fazakerley repeated “The fans are entitled to their own opinion. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and they’re entitled to voice it.
“The frustrating thing for me is that they don’t see how hard we work. They don’t see how much work goes into preparing for each game. We are workaholics when it comes to that side of things. The players work their socks off. We push them in training so we know how hard we are working and they don’t seem to appreciate that.but it’s understandable that they are unhappy because results are not going our way and we’re not in the greatest league position in the world but it’s not as doom and gloom as everyone’s making out.
“Beginning of the season we were relegation favourites and we’re where most people expect us to be but within the camp we’ve got higher expectations. We expect ourselves to be higher up and we put pressure on ourselves. We expect to be doing better than we are. “
“We always will keep working hard, as we have been. We need as much support as we can get. People need to keep faith. If we win our games in hand we can shoot out of the relegation zone.We will continue to stay positive. We will continue to work hard and we believe we can turn it around.”
Havant and Waterlooville: Young, Strugnell, Medway, Stock, Dutton, Hill, Cardini (Swallow 61), Donnelly (Whatmough 73), Mullings, Hayter (Paterson 73), Lewis.
Unused substitutes: Molyneaux, Morgan.
Welling United: Welling United: Rodak, Williams (Cumberbatch 84), Jefford, Vidal, Chambers, Osborne, Daniel, Lee, Porter (Bakare 62), Wellard (Green 67), Harris.
Unused substitutes: McEntegart, Fagan.
Referee: Adam Hopkins
Assistants: Andreas Anastasiou & Lee Forrester
4th Official: Michael Heavey
Attendance: 371
Welling star player: Ben Jefford
Pictures supplied by Dave Budden.