Following Welling United’s Kent Reliance Senior Cup Semi Final penalty shoot out victory over Charlton Athletic, joint caretaker manager Harry Wheeler was pleased with his team’s overall performance.

He said “In the first twenty minutes, (goalkeeper) Chris (Lewington) was heavily involved and doing more than he should do but overall, I thought that we grew gradually in the first half.

“It wasn’t great at times, there were little errors, but it was more pleasing how we reacted in the second half and again, it’s another second half when we came out and we’ve shown a little bit. It’s nice that we know that we’ve have that in the lads that when it’s not quite going their way they’ve got a reaction as a group.”

Even though it wasn’t the Addicks’ first team, Wheeler knew it was going to be a challenge. He said “They’re a good under 23 side. They’ve got some lads who’ve played in the first team. We knew, when you play teams like that you don’t always get the possession, you have to dig in a bit at times and it took a really good goal to break us down.

“Regardless of what you say of Chris’s one on ones, it was still nil nil. We knew we were going to have to dig in. They were full of energy, pace and technical ability and we’ve got to try and play a different way to counteract it. Second half we did it, we didn’t do it so well in the first half.

Wheeler wasn’t surprised to have beaten Charlton. He continued “I expected them to win. We’ve got quite a few lads who’ve played first team football in the football league so in a way their lads will be aspiring to get as many appearances as some people like Ali (Fuseini) have, as Sam Hatton have, and try and get to their level.

“We should, through experience and sheer physicality, we should go and win the game. I expected us to go and win the game. I knew that they would be good, and we had to dig in but we had to use our attributes and in the second half we did that.”

When discussing the penalty shoot out he said that he told the penalty takers “Just to relax. Whoever wants to take them will take them. I don’t see the point of picking players who might not want to take them. It’s their choice and if they jump at the chance, which the first four did.

“We wish them good luck and tell them to stay relaxed and to go with the moment. We know that it’s a lottery at that point. We don’t give them any special advice. If they want to step up and take one, hopefully they’ll be confident enough to put it away.

“I said to Chris before we started that he’s had enough practice this season. We’ve given enough away. He probably deserved that moment as well, to be the main man. He does so well in games. We’ve lost games with him in the sticks that he didn’t deserve to lose.

It’s really important for Chris to show what he can do. He stepped up and he did really well. We were pretty confident after the first two. It was in our favour and we knew that the lads coming up would be able to step up and take one. Even after Matt Fish who missed, Danny Waldren was coming up next and we were confident that he would put it away.”

However, it came as a surprise to Wheeler when informed that in two penalty shoot outs this season, only one out of eight attempts was successful. “I didn’t know that.” he laughed. “We’ll take that all day long. Unfortunately, in penalties in the league we haven’t been great but in penalty shoot outs we seem to be quite good so if we get another one in the final and it ends up that way, we’ll be  confident enough.”.

Changes to the line up from Saturday were caused by injuries. “Harry Crawford was enforced through a knee injury.” He said. “He took one on the wall in the first half on Saturday, the notorious wall at that end that seems to cause a few injuries, and he had a few stitches just down the front of his knee so he couldn’t play. Ali’s was precautionary. He had a slight swelling on the ankle and Sam Hatton needed a game anyway and he came in and did well.”

Alex Cathline scored his first goal for Welling and Wheeler said “It was massively important. It doesn’t matter how the first one goes in. Who knows, maybe he’ll start scoring regularly. A goal is a goal. I’m not worried about how it goes in. It took a slight deflection, he got in the right area and that’s all you can ask for.

“Get in the right area and hopefully it ends up in the back of the net and it has. He’s delighted and we’re delighted for him. We’ll see how he reacts to that on Saturday.”

Three centre backs were already injured so two ‘new’ ones, Ben Martin and Phil Walsh, have been recruited. However, Martin went down towards the end but, thankfully, was able to continue after treatment. Wheeler confirmed that he was a little concerned at the time. “I’ve known Ben for a long time. It was a slight worry but Ben says it’s fine, it’s nothing much.

“He’ll be all right. He’ll have a good rest until Saturday and put himself in contention, as will some of the others.”.  .

No decision has yet been made on where the final with Dover will be played. Wheeler said that a ground between Welling and Dover would be good. “Somewhere neutral and somewhere nice for the lads to play in towards the end of the season. We don’t really want to go to Dover and Dover probably don’t want to come here so we’d like to go to a neutral ground somewhere that suits both.”

Picture supplied by David Brown.