It was another disappointing afternoon for Welling United when they were knocked out of the F.A. Trophy at home to Havant and Waterlooville. After the game, Welling manager Rod Stringer spoke to Mark Doig.

He said: “To get a home tie against a lower opposition has got to be a good tie. We haven’t capitalised on that again, same as the Chatham game. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb at two-nil because we haven’t taken our chances. 

“I don’t think that the first goal killed us because we got into half time and we felt we were confident enough to get something out of the game. I think the way we’ve conceded goals at Eastbourne and again here today, the goalkeeper’s cost us the game but Chuks (Anointed Chukwu) could have probably got him out of trouble. If you make a mistake, it’s becoming a big mistake because you can’t correct it by scoring the goals. 

“For their second goal, the guy shoots from the edge of the box and it pea-rolls over my goalkeeper. Daniel (Jinadu)’s come in to do us a favour, because Rhys (Lovett) has been out, and it’s an Achilles heel for us at the minute that we haven’t got a recognised goalkeeper that’s able to keep a clean sheet. Hopefully, Rhys isn’t far away.”

He continued: “That is a real howler of a mistake. It’s hard for the boys because you’ve got to keep telling them to keep believing in themselves, to keep driving on and all of a sudden you’re two-nil down despite them not having a lot of efforts on goal.”

“We probably had ten chances in the area and scored one with a header that we poked over the line. When the opportunities fell, they got blocks on, the keeper’s pulled out a worldie save there, on another day that goes in and we pull this tie back round again.”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. I think there were good chances that we should convert. The chances we had, we didn’t take and that’s why we’re out of the Trophy.”

There were financial implications too, with prize money at stake. Stringer continued: “Today we’ve let the club down with a chance to get some extra money and we haven’t done any favours to Howard (Prosser) today.”

“Sometimes, when you need the money that much, it becomes a lot harder to try and win these games. It’s like everything in life. When you want something so much it doesn’t normally happen.”

“The boys were well aware of that before the game today. They knew that it was a nice chunk of money and not just that we wanted a little run in it. 

“Looking at these players that we’ve got here, we are in a relegation battle so we’re probably better off out of the Trophy because it will be less games and we need to make sure that, come Tuesday, it will be our cup final.”

“If you’d asked me before the game that we had to lose one of them, today would have probably been the one but Tuesday just becomes a bigger game than it should have been because of today’s result.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.