Squad strength in depth proved vital as Welling United twice came from behind to claim a vital point at Billericay Town in the fight for National League South survival. After the game, Wings manager, Peter Taylor, was happy with the point.

“We showed tremendous character in coming back.” He said “We gave two poor goals away again. We had the ball both times and lost them then we concede two goals. We’re giving teams the chance to hurt us but we’re then showing brilliant character to get back and I think that’s what we did today. I think the longer the game went on, if anybody was going to win it, it would have been us.”

For the first goal conceded, Taylor said “It was very disappointing because Olu (Durojaiye) had the ball just outside the box. There‘s no way he should lose it in an area like that. It’s not a safe area. That’s where you clear your lines so you can regroup. We lost it there and they eventually got their free kick and they scored from that so a very poor goal.

“Then we get one back. Olu recovered it and scored a good goal which was nice. I’m sure it made him feel a little bit better but then we conceded a penalty, which was a poor decision by Elliot (Johnson), and Dipo (Akinyemi) lost it in the first place when really he should have kept it. Maybe the service to him shouldn’t have gone into him because it was in our half. Unfortunately, we get punished for things like that. I’m sure there’s a lot of teams out there who have the same problems but don’t get punished but we showed character to keep going.”

For the neutral, it was an entertaining game with much to admire. Taylor continued “Both teams knew how important the game was and fair credit to the league because I thought there was some good things on display and we’re the bottom two teams in the league. The togetherness of the group was very good, and very important in the situation in which we’re in.”

After half time, Welling were a little sluggish and Taylor explained “We didn’t start great in the second half but we had a couple of slight injury problems as well. People were feeling things and we weren’t sure how long they were going to stay on for. Both players (Aaron Barnes and Elliot Johnson) have got slight hamstrings so we had to be careful. 

“Another positive note for me was Brad Pearce, he came on as a sub and I thought he was outstanding. He had to come on because Elliot was feeling his hamstring a little bit but Brad made some very important headers which was terrific.”

A further substitute then created the equaliser with great composure. Taylor said “Ben Allen made a great run as far as I’m concerned. There was another run just after that that I thought that it was onside but they gave as offside but fair play to Ben I thought he was causing them some problems with his forward runs. I thought that Ben was terrific to be fair. He showed real control, real calmness, great pass that made everybody’s mind up and there was no pressure on Dipo to put it in.”

Again, Welling were still full of running in the final stages. “We’re quite pleased with our fitness.” Confirmed Taylor. “We feel as though we’re outrunning teams, we’re lasting longer and again today showed that. To me, we were much stronger at the end of the game and if anyone was going to win, we had the fitness to do it.

“I’d have taken a draw before the game and I’ll take a draw now ahead of another massive game against Bath next week.”

Pictures supplied by Dave Budden.