It took a last minute Danny Mills leveller for Welling to claim a point against Wealdstone but manager Steve King did not see it as a ‘get out of jail’ strike.

He said: “The first half we didn’t play particularly well but we’ve cancelled it out. They came with a game plan to just turn us, turn us, turn us, turn us, be compact and fight for the first ball and the second ball and that’s what they did.

“They ground out the first half and the one chance they had they scored but I think second half it was one way traffic and we had to score. It was the minimum that we deserved from the game.”

King wasn’t pleased with the way Welling conceded, explaining “They’ve got jobs to do before the game starts. They’re given their man to mark and they have to stay with them until it clears the half way line.”

After the interval, Welling were much the better team and King said that in his team talk he gave the team a reminder of what they should do “We need to stay out wide” he told them.”Get the ball to the wide men and they’re going to cause them problems.

“We played the game into their hands. We were too narrow in the first half. Second half, as soon as we opened it up it was a different game. Brendan got three crosses in in the first ten minutes. We could’ve, we should’ve scored. We were winning first balls. A soon as we opened the game up they were on the back foot and all they could do was clear their lines.

“We don’t want to go long. We want to play through the thirds. We needed to keep the width and when we did keep the width we had Brendan and Craig over-lapping him and it was more us, it was more of what we’re about.”

Although an unplanned substitution, the introduction of Danny Mills made a difference. “He came on and scored the goal that he probably deserved to get for his weeks and weeks of endeavour but we deserved to win that game without a shadow of doubt.” said King “Second half it was one way traffic and I feel that we need to be a little more lively around the second ball in the box but I feel there was only one team trying to play. They set their stalls out to be spoilers on the day and that’s what they did.

“Their game plan was working to a tee before we told our centre halves to be a bit more brave to get on the ball and play from there whereas before we were going a bit too long for my liking in to Patto (Matt Paterson) and their centre half was winning all the headers.” continued King. “We needed to change it and we did and once we did we got on top. A draw was a minimum that we deserved to get. From their point of view, because it was so late they feel hard done by, because it was such a late goal but anyone who saw the second half, we were camped in their half. It was almost like attack versus defence.”

Despite not being totally content with a point King was happy with the spirit of the team. He said “I think we showed a togetherness today, a toughness. You have to stand up and be counted against Wealdstone.

“They are a strong physical outfit and I felt in the physical department they were better than us in the first half, as in physically dominated, but in the second half once we started to get the ball down and play we were well worthy of our point and should have got more.”

Caden Genovesi has come in on loan from Queens Park Rangers and has made a solid debut. “He is a steady player.” said King. “He is only nineteen. I had him last year (at Whitehawk) so I knew what I was getting. He is a steady player that is going to give you seven out of ten or eight out of ten every week. That’s what he is. It took him a little bit of time to get into it, the first twenty minutes, but after that he did his job and what was asked of him and that’s all that you can ask for.”

Montel Agyemang came in last weekend for what was suggested to be a one of appearance however he has remained in the team. King said that he has not signed a contract for Welling at present. “It’s a week by week scenario at the moment.”

Not normally one to single out individual players, King did praise Nassim L’Ghoul for how he coped with some pretty robust challenges. King said “The thing is with him he’s tenacious, if he’s over, he’s hurt. And the thing is with him, he keeps going, and keeps going and keeps going and that’s a testament to him. To play in England you need that little bit of bite and spirit and he’s got it in abundance.

“His quality at times is the highest level in football and he needs to learn when and how, not to try too much at times, to pop it and get it back but his overall ability is second to none and you speak to a manager whose played against us and he says he’s the best player in the league.

“You can’t get fouled seven times from the right back and the right back gets booked in the 94^th minute. He forearm smashed him on the halfway line with ten minutes to go. There was a two footed tackle in the first minute. We can show all these clips. I thought the treatment on him was a disgrace. The one that their centre forward got booked for, he absolutely wiped him out.”

Yet another injury was suffered by Welling causing Bradley Goldberg to be substitutes.”Done his groin so that will be a bit of time out.” groaned King. “It could be two, three, four weeks. We don’t know until we’ve got that assessed.

“Josh (Hill) is out for a minimum of probably six to eight weeks. He’s got to have a cast but it’s not a cast that you can play with, It’s the main bone in his hand so he’s got to have that plastered properly, probably in the next ten days.

“Jordan (Gibbons has a) dead leg from the other day. Because he played on with it he made it worse. Not sure with him, it could be a week but at the end of the day it’s only a dead leg.

“Richard (Orlu) made the bench today. Hopefully, he’ll play on Tuesday night (in the London Senior Cup tie with Corinthian Casuals). Hoping that Ach (Anthony Acheampong) gets involved on Tuesday night as well.

Gavin (McCallum), Tuesday night. (Kyjuon) Marsh-Brown will get minutes on Tuesday night. He needs to start a game but I just felt today in the second half we were so dominant in wide areas that we couldn’t change that one.”

There is a doubt about whether the Tuesday night game will go ahead as scheduled due to Welling’s floodlight problems but with no game in the calendar for Saturday King confirmed that there will definitely be a friendly arranged. “We will play.” said King “We will have a game, we will bring a game in because like I say, people need minutes. Ach and Richard need minutes. Gavin needs minutes, Marsh-Brown needs minutes.”

Picture supplied by Dave Brown.