It was another disappointing afternoon for Welling United as they paid the price for mistakes at both ends at home to Hemel Hempstead Town. After the match, Welling manager Peter Taylor was in no doubt that his team should have won.

He said: “It does hurt a little bit because we had a difficult game, it was a difficult pitch, a very lively pitch, and at times you couldn’t play as much football as you wanted to, you had to help the ball forward, but I thought the players attitudes were outstanding.”

“Unfortunately, for us, we didn’t take the chances when we created them. I thought that we created three very, very good chances apart from the one that we did score so I’m disappointed that we didn’t take at least one of them.”

To compound the disappointment of failing to take their chances, Welling conceded two goals through players being given too much time from corners. “That’s been a major problem all season, to be honest with you.” He said.

“We work on it, we talk about it, we’ve got sheets on the wall that shows them where they’ve got to be and the reasons that they’re there, but we’re still conceding goals from corners and it is very, very frustrating. We had a little spell that we stopped it but, all of a sudden, it’s come back again.”

Results around the league went Welling’s way and a victory, or even a point, would have been valuable under the circumstances. Taylor continued “We knew that the other sides around us were losing so a draw would have been a good result for us. One-nil is not enough and we had two very good opportunities to go two-nil up and I think that if that happens we probably do go on and win it but until you get enough goals, you’re never safe.”

“In our situation, until you’re clear, the boys start to get a touch negative and a touch nervous and I think that might have been the case at the end. Hemel Hempstead are a very good team. They don’t give you any time.”

“They’ve got some very good midfield players. I thought as though we matched them in every way and if anything, even to be fair to their manager, he said ‘you didn’t deserve to get beaten’. I think that’s credit to our performance so I’m just really, really gutted for the players because they’ve worked hard all week and they worked hard today.”

“If any group of players give you an honest workout you’ve got to accept that. We were too long ball in the first half but I think that you’ll find that they were very nervous because of the pitch. The pitch is not a good pitch.”

Two players game in for debuts including centre back Elliot Johnson, who came in for Tommy Davis “I wanted to play Elliott in there and I wanted to change the shape.” Taylor explained.

“We knew that their big centre forward wasn’t playing. We knew he’d been injured for a couple of weeks. If the big centre forward had played, there’s a fair chance that I would have played Tom because we would’ve needed the ariel part of it but we didn’t need that today because we knew they had two smaller players.”

D’Sean Theobalds also came in and Taylor said “ I felt as though we needed another midfield player. D’Sean became available and I’m really pleased to have him. He needs more matches, to be fair to him, because he hasn’t played much this season, but I think he’ll help us.”

Coming back to the club, and on as a substitute, was Ben Allen. Taylor said: “I was told that there was a chance that he would want to come back. I think that he’s a good boy. I didn’t want to lose him. I trained with him for one day when I first joined the club and I wanted him to stay but he had a better offer from Concord. Now, all of a sudden, he’s available and I wanted to bring him back.”

Now the preparations for the game at Billericay Town, described by Taylor as massive, commence. He said: “I think the players, to be fair, they will be pleased in the way that they’ve performed in lots of the bits today. They’ll be disappointed with the result but when we get together again, training wise, on Tuesday, they’ll be positive. It’s a very important week for us.”

“I think they’ll be fine. It’s better off being unlucky in a way that you’ve played better. I felt that we deserved something out of the game and next time they come training they’ll know that. They’ll feel positive. They know what a big match it is next Saturday and we’ve got to prepare well and we’ve got to look forward to it.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.