Victory over Welling United maintained Folkestone Invicta’s fourteen point lead at the head of the Isthmian League Premier Division. After the game, Folkestone manager, Jay Saunders, shared his thoughts.

“I thought it was a deserved three points” he said. “Once the game settled down, we moved the ball quite well, scored two good goals and kept a clean sheet. Ideally, you’d like to score a few more but you know Welling are fighting for their lives. Maxy (Welling manager Ryan Maxwell)’s got them really well organised so it’s never easy so all in all, I’m pleased with the three points.”

Two-nil might look like a straight-forward regulation victory, however, Saunders confirmed that wasn’t the case. He said: “There’s no easy games at this stage of the season. I think we’ve got thirteen to go now, and people go on about top and bottom teams.”

“You’re playing Welling, for instance, who are trying to stay up then next week, you’re playing teams in the play-offs so it’s difficult. We’re treating every game individually. We concentrate on us and making sure we turn up and do our jobs well and if we do that, we think we’ve got a chance in games.” 

Goalkeeper Ted Collins wasn’t troubled much, other than claiming a few crosses. “They had some set pieces but I don’t think he really had a save to make.” confirmed Saunders.

“Sometimes you have to give credit to the boys in front of him and I thought we defended those bits well. Moving forward, I thought we could have been better in the final third. I thought the strikers were slightly off it today, Pigs (Joe Pigott) and Hutch (Jake Hutchinson), but that’s being critical. They’ve been brilliant all season, Like I say, it’s another clean sheet, two goals at home, and we move on.”

Donell Thomas and Liam Smith scored at crucial times as far as Saunders was concerned. He said: “Donell’s been excellent since he’s come back. He was a big miss for us. We lost him for well over a month and at the start of the season he was a big part of why we were winning games. It’s brilliant to have him back and he’s got two in two since he came back.”

“Liam, it’s a great little one-two, he goes through and tucks it away well and I think we needed it at that point because, actually, I thought Welling had just got on top at that point in the game so it was a big goal.”