Whilst defeating Lincoln City was always going to be a tough ask, Welling United joint caretaker manager, Tristan Lewis, felt that not all of players in the Wings’ team did themselves justice.

“I thought that it was a massive opportunity lost.” said Lewis. “I think they (Lincoln City) were fitter and stronger, they should be, they’re full time, and they’re top of the Conference Prem but I felt that it took us too long to adapt to that. You never come up against that intensity in the Conference South but, maybe, our quality should have come through a little it more. Did we really do our best to match them? I don’t think that they did. I think there is a changing room full of frustration.”

Their cause was not helped by conceding early as the result of a poor back pass. Lewis admitted “I think the manner of the first goal changed the complexion of the mentality. There was plenty of time left in the game , we have had a couple of chances, but let’s be honest they’ve missed a few chances as well. We have to be admitting that they could have scored a few more goals.”

Conceding twice immediately after the re-start scuppered any plans discussed at half time. Lewis said “Again, massively frustrating. We spoke about what we thought we could do to get back in it and then we came out and started like that and the game changes almost instantly.

“I actually thought we fell apart for five or ten minutes and it could have gone to three, four, five but credit the lads, they had a go and I think that Danny’s (Waldren) goal got us back into it but they’re very good at seeing out games.

“They’re very, very professional, big and strong, and fit as you like. For our league situation, and the position we are in, we’ve got to take a leaf out of their book and be humble enough to do that. They’re very good at winning games, pick up the second ball, hook it on when it needs to be hooked. They don’t take risks. We’ve got to learn from them to a degree.”

On Tuesday night, Welling play Cray Valley PM in the London Senior Cup and with important league games approaching, there will be team changes. Lewis confirmed “Some of the lads that have played a lot of the games recently will be left out. I think we’ll try and give some of the boys who haven’t played an opportunity. It’s probably not ideal to have it.”

Other players who could be involved are those who are out on loan or dual registration. Joey Taylor is one of those. “He’s been at training for the last couple of weeks so I’m sure that he’ll be involved on Tuesday if that works. We’ll try and rest as many of the senior players as possible but people like Slabbs (Jamie Slabber) and Ali (Fuseini), they need to play on Tuesday. They need to try and give the other boys a bit of competition.”

Discussing the return of Dean Leacock, Lewis confirmed that he is back in the squad for more than the one game. “We know we’re light in that department (centre back). It was 50/50 all week whether Sean (Francis) would be able to play so we needed to do something.

Dean’s massively experienced If Sean hadn’t have passed his fitness test, he’d have started the game. He had a few games at Billericay but we had the opportunity to bring him back and decided it was right to do.Even having him in the dug out, he’s a big character and I think that we need big characters at the minute.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.