Woeful Welling crashed out of the F.A. Cup against fellow Vanarama National South club Whitehawk.

After conceding within the first few minutes, they were unable to breach a well drilled Whitehawk defence and missed out on a potential big pay day against a Football League club.

They had barely had a chance to set up before they went behind. Poor defending allowed a cross field ball by Mike West to find Reece Connolly in space behind the back four and he finished with aplomb.

One of many long range Ali Fuseini shots flew over after Dean Morgan’s free kick came back off the wall.

Wilfred Tagbo headed wide from Dan Harding’s cross and West flicked wide after stealing in at the far post unmarked.

Fuseini’s next long range shot was the closest Welling came to scoring when Ross Flitney touched it onto the pot and wide.

At half time, Jordon Brown was withdrawn and replaced by Ryan Della-Verde but Welling were still on the back foot.

Glen Southam fired over before Connolly had a great opportunity saved by the feet of Chris Lewington.

Della-Verde came close for Welling but Flitney got a firm enough touch to slow it down allowing him to claw it back from the line.

Southam curled wide for Whitehawk then Fuseini shot wide from the edge of the area for Welling.

Lucas Rodrigues came close to finishing the match off when connecting with Harding’s cross but Lewington made another good save.

Once more, Fuseini shot wide from distance and when Adam Coombes headed over late on, Welling knew their cup run was over.

Manager Mark Goldberg said afterwards “I’m devastated. We conceded very early on. It was a cheap goal to give away. From then on, unfortunately, we were very untidy today and not our normal selves. I just felt in the first half we started forcing the ball and didn’t feel the effort was there the way that I would have expected. We dominated the second half without scoring. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how well you played, it’s about winning..

“Foolishly, we had a player out of position in the first half which was something that was a little bit forced on us with the injuries that we’ve got. In the second half we changed that an we were far more gelling as a team. We probably created enough chances to have least got back into the game.

“The truth is that if we had started with the same team that started the second half, I don’t think we’d have lost that game. We played some nice little football in the second half and we cut ourselves through but too many cheap offsides and when we got that chance in front of goal we weren’t clinical enough. Too many players off their game.”

 

Welling United: Lewington, Fish, Braham-Barrett, Fuseini, Francis, Hayles, Hatton (Johnson 78), Waldren, Coombes, Morgan (Nelson 90), Brown (Della-Verde 46).

Subs not used: Agu, Leacock.

 

Whitehawk: Flittney, West, Harding, Strevens, Reid, M’Boungou, Abdulla, Southam, Tagbo (Rodrigues 76), Connolly, Masterton (Aldavert 86).

Subs not used: Fernandez, Favarel, Torres, Lengka, Hamilton.

 

Referee: Elliott Kaye

Assistants: Tom Bishop and Michael Heavey

Attendance: 515

 

Welling star player: Lyle Della-Verde

Pictures supplied by Dave Budden.