Victory at Canvey Island gave Welling United their first Isthmian League Premier Division double having beaten the Gulls at home earlier in the season. After the match, Wings manager Ryan Maxwell shared his thoughts.

“I’m absolutely delighted with the result.” he said “We came in one-nil up at half time and I actually said that I wasn’t very pleased with the performance. I don’t want to focus on that as I know that the performance isn’t the main priority right now.”

“It’s all about getting the results, but I still have a standard in what I want to achieve in terms of performance’s as well. I didn’t think we did that. I didn’t think that we played the pitch exceptionally well either, it took us time to adjust to that, but we scored at a great time.”

He continued: “We’ve worked really hard this week. We were semi fortunate to get that goal at that time but the harder you work, the more you get a bit of luck. The second half, going to be much of the same, make sure we start right etcetera and their goal has beaten our keeper, a kind of cross-shot. Very fortunate, the goal, but we had to react.”

“That could have taken the wind out of our sails but I think that the team is starting to show quite regularly that it has resilience and we showed real resilience to come back in the way that we did. That’s a massive positive because it’s not all going to go our way.”

“I said this against Cheshunt when we were one-nil up, one-all and we came back and won three-one, very similar like today. I feel as if we’ve got that in abundance. The boys are really in the fight. We talk about being competitive and being up for it and those boys certainly, certainly are. I thought that they were a little bit unfortunate at times, a couple of things didn’t fall for them, but we deserved to win.”

It was an unchanged team from the eleven starters and five substitutes that beat Wingate and Finchley seven days previously. Maxwell explained “If you’re going to fight you want the same boys beside you. You understand who does what, how they do it, the continuity of understanding is massively important plus it gives the boys that feeling of loyalty and off the back of a good win, how can I change it?”

However, with Welling’s next game just two days later, Maxwell accepted that changes may be necessary. “We’ll use the squad, we’ll see how the boys feel tomorrow.” he admitted.

“They’ve done a bit of a stretch there and I’ve said they have to recover right and I know that they will but some will recover better than others, some played longer than others etcetera so we’ll manage that but we’ve got boys at the ready and boys that are keen.”

“John (Ufuah) was brilliant when he came on today, made the goal, then there’s other lads that might need a rest and we can change it up and freshen it up. We’ll just take stock. We’ll look at all of the squad and the value of everybody.”

Continuing about Ufuah, Maxwell said: “(I’m) delighted for John because we had a little chat together on Thursday night, John and I, and I’m glad that we did. I filled him with confidence, I hope, and I told him what he’s effective at and he did that.”

Since coming to the squad, Maxwell has overhauled the squad and he is now happy with what he has he confirmed: “I said to the boys ‘this is your club’. I said ‘You have to protect the shirt, protect your team-mate, protect us,’ It’s a ‘we’ thing now. We’re united and I don’t want to sign any more. I want to stay as we are unless I have to in terms of injuries and suspensions, but this is us, ‘I’m hanging my hat on you. Let’s go and get some wins.’ 

Picture supplied by Keith Gillard.