Although Welling United were well beaten at Ebbsfleet United, joint caretaker manager Tristan Lewis felt that there was no disgrace in the scoreline.

He said “They’re very, very precise and very strong here and play a threatening form of football that you’re always on the back foot but we took the lead then conceded a sloppy first goal then the second goal from a set piece has killed us.

“How there’s two of them unmarked at the back post I’ll never know then the penalty probably put a reflection at half time, that you could argue, was slightly unjust.”

It could have been so different and he mused “We’ve had a good chance to go 2-0 up but those two late goals in the first half put a completely different complexion on it..

“Then we came out in the second half and I thought we started really well. We changed the shape a little bit at half time to try and give ourselves a little bit more strength in the middle.

“There were a lot of discussions before the game, and maybe with hindsight, we should have done that from the start. The sending off has killed us as well but the game was probably gone by that stage.

Despite the set backs, Welling kept battling and Lewis was able to see some positives “We could have fallen apart with ten men at five one down with fifteen minutes to go against these.” He said. “I think that some of the lads have done all right today. I’m not going to hammer them. Some not so well and we’ve got to make sure that all of those things are looked at.

“I think that the manner of it is very difficult to swallow because I think that at times we did all right.

He continued “I think that the lads know that they put a shift in today and they’re all aware that the circumstances went against us today and I think that the second half could have been a lot more painful than it was. They’ve beaten a lot of good teams here comfortably.

“I don’t think that this score makes us mugs. They’re the best team I’ve seen this season by a country mile. The scoreline today doesn’t quite do some of the lads justice.”

Lewis went on to say “They’ve got players that, in all honesty, shouldn’t be playing in this league. It’s unfair because they didn’t have to deal with the circumstances that  we had to deal with today, going down to ten men with no fit centre halves.

“Even playing Rickie before the game, you’re taking a gamble that he’s fit in the warm up.”

By taking him off at that point, it protected him ahead of the promotion six pointer against Gosport Borough next Saturday.

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.