Defensive errors proved costly for Welling United as they fell to defeat at Chatham Town in their Isthmian League Premier Division derby. After the match, Welling United manager Ryan Maxwell gave his thoughts.

“Gutted for the players because they gave their all and deserved to be treated fairly.” he said.

“You cannot have three penalties turned down, both linesmen said it was penalties, and they were completely waved away. The less said the better.”

Dead ball situations played their part. Maxwell said: “We scored from a corner. They scored from two corners, corners are vital. They get given a corner that’s not a corner then Ade (Azeez) hits it against their guy’s shin, it goes for a corner and we don’t get a corner. Set pieces are vital. They win games at every level of football.” 

He continued: “The worst time to concede was just before half time. That was the one that was a real sickener because we had to get in at that one all stage despite having two penalties turned down in the first half. It was a difficult team talk because the boys felt robbed.”

Although disappointed at how the afternoon evolved, Maxwell didn’t want to dwell on it. Although the Wings are bottom of the league, they are only seven points behind fifth from bottom Carshalton Athletic who they host on Tuesday.

“Our players are worked up for Tuesday night.” confirmed Maxwell. The boys have got character. They showed character today. They showed it last Saturday after not playing for two weeks so the boys have got character. They’ve been told to put this one to bed and move on.”

“I think you have to be honest and say that it’s a game that we want to win, and really must win. It doesn’t mean that if if we don’t win that, it’s ‘what’s next?’ as we have twelve games after that so we’ll take one game at a time.”

“We intended to win this game today with no eyes on Tuesday, but now it’s (on to) Tuesday, it’s against Carshalton, they’re just above us. We know that we can pull them right in to it. It’s a game in hand for us. Obviously it’s bigger than just three points.”

“I’ve already spoken to them in there.” he continued. “They already know the importance of it and how we have to treat it so today’s done, there’s no point dwelling on it. We know what happened here.”

“There were lots of positives. I was pleased with the performances of the boys that came on in the second half particularly and we take all the positives from it and we move on. We don’t point fingers. We know what happened and we focus on Tuesday.”

Jack Thomas, on nine bookings, was warned shortly before half time and Maxwell was concerned that a tenth will result in a suspension. That was part of the thinking in why he was substituted at half time.

Maxwell said: “(There are) no new injuries, which is good, all (of the players) are fit for Tuesday. Jack was going to get a yellow card and if he got a yellow card he couldn’t have played on Tuesday so we did that for a tactical change.”

Picture supplied by Peter Jozwiak.