Due to a one match touchline ban, Welling United manager Rod Stringer had to watch Welling United’s victory at St. Albans City from the main stand.

As a result his assistant, Kevin Watson, assumed control from the dugout and took the media duties after the match.

Unsurprisingly, he was delighted with the three points and clean sheet. “I thought we were outstanding today, front to back, We knew St. Albans were going to have a lot of possession. It was important that we kept our shape, didn’t go chasing the ball, and I think that in general over the ninety plus minutes, we limited them to not even a handful of very good chances.

“With a little bit of luck, and a little bit more composure, we should have scored more goals today and that should have been more comfortable. I just said to the boys at the end, there, I could not care less how much of the ball the other team has. As long as you keep your shape and you’re difficult to break down, you’ll always get chances. They’ve been outstanding to a man today, every single one of them.”

Although St. Albans had plenty of possession in the second period, the created very little. Watson said “They had the header, and they had the one where Dave came across and made an unbelievable tackle, but apart from that, if you let these teams centre halves step in, eventually they’ve got to try and find a pass through you and we narrowed off, and narrowed off and we cut out a lot and if we’d been a bit more clinical, brighter, on the break we could have got in another half a dozen times.”

He continued “You can’t knock the work ethic, the work rate, we’ve been on a little bit of a dicky run and I said to the boys in training on Thursday, in the last two games we’ve probably had one disappointing half of football which was last week at home against Eastbourne. Second half we were very good. At Worthing, the whole game we had a game plan. Again, we didn’t take our chances there so we came out on the wrong side of a one-nil defeat.

“There’s not a lot wrong with us. We’ve got some good players. You’re beginning to see now, that they’re beginning to gel, taking on the roles that we’re asking them to do, and how they’re playing. There were a couple of things today that I was a little bit disappointed with in terms of defensively wise. A couple of times in the first half, they got in and I’ve spoken to the players involved with that.

“It’s a big three points.” he added. “You don’t want to get sucked into the bottom four whether it’s three games gone or twelve games gone because all of a sudden, psychologically, it becomes difficult to get out of and again, we’ve just said to them in there, that win today only really matters if you follow it up on Tuesday night with another good performance and another good win.”

Anointed Chukwu scored the only goal, his fifth of the season in all competitions, having joined at the start of the season from Isthmian League Premier club Wingate and Finchley. Watson said “Along with some others, he’s getting used to the level and there is a difference between step three and step two. What you know your going to get from Chuks is work-rate. He’s going to run around. Sometimes he runs around in wrong areas but he gets goals, he does get goals.

“I’m really pleased for him. He should have had another one but he said that he was too tired to run up the ball  with the pitch. He is someone who wants to run behind and he’s given us something today, and that’s three points. He is a strong runner, he does run in behind, he does close people down and he’s as honest as the day’s long and that’s all you can ask.”

Also pleasing Watson was another player signed from Wingate and Finchley. “I thought that Sam Cornish in the middle of the pitch was excellent.” he confirmed. “I thought that he showed a real knowledge of how to play that deep lying midfield role and he’s got some pats on the back in there as that is a really important position on the pitch.”

For the first time in recent games there were no controversial refereeing decisions. Watson was relieved and said “We had that guy (Chay Hathway) at Hemel. We lost the game that night but you don’t remember anything about him. The same again today. I thought he was very good. I said to him ‘you were fair to both teams’. Over the two games we’ve had him, he’s probably been the best one we’ve had.”

New signing, Garrett Kelly, came on as a substitute for the Wings and Watson stated what can be expected from him. “He has been at Aveley. He’s gone and played some football down at Totton as well where Charlie Austen, the ex-Southampton player is playing now. He is probably the type of player that we didn’t have.

“He’s going to run around. He’s going to get some tackles in, play simple, give it to other people, and out of all the midfield players that we have who’ve got very different attributes, they don’t really have that side of it so he gives us another string to our bow in terms of that. He is aggressive, puts tackles in, wins headers, and runs hard so we’ve got hopes for him.”

Images courtesy of Dave Budden