Dulwich Hamlet 2-1 Welling United - Dulwich were hungrier, they had more desire than us and I felt they were really up for the game, massively up for the game, admits Welling United boss Steve King

Dulwich Hamlet 2 – 1 Welling United
Location	Imperial Fields, Bishopsford Road, Morden, Surrey SM4 6BF
Kickoff	28/11/2018 19:45

DULWICH HAMLET  2-1  WELLING UNITED
The Buildbase FA Trophy Third Qualifying Round Replay
Wednesday 28 December 2018
Stephen McCartney reports from Imperial Fields

DULWICH HAMLET manager Gavin Rose says he was happy with the level of the performance  from his players after sending Welling United crashing out of The Buildbase FA Trophy at the first hurdle.

Welling United arrived at a wet and windy Imperial Fields sitting in third-place in the Vanarama National League South table with 31 points from 16 games, while hosts Dulwich Hamlet were in fifteenth-place with 22 points from 18 games.

Dulwich Hamlet took the lead after only 213 seconds when left-wing-back Nathan Green tapped in from very close range to score his third goal of the season.

Welling United hit back through Richard Orlu’s volley – the centre-half returning from a two-month injury lay-off - but Dulwich Hamlet booked their First Round trip to Bostik Premier Division side Wingate & Finchley on Saturday 15 December when Afolabi Akinyemi came off the bench to notch his tenth goal of the season.

“We were playing a very good team tonight. We rode our luck in the first half on Saturday but we grew into the game,” said Rose during the post-match press conference.

“The first half today we were very good. They came out at us in the second half, a lot of percentage play and picked up the second balls and they looked a threat but I thought they didn’t really open us up in the second half.

“We started the game well on Saturday for the first two minutes and after that we went to sleep but today we passed the ball well, it was more sustained in periods.”

Welling United manager Steve King said: “There’s some big calls out there, some big decisions which the referee’s got wrong again!

“I think the first goal that they gave offside was offside because the guy is on the goal-line and touches it in. It’s offside and they scored the same one again, the second goal.  The goal was the same one, again on the goal-line and he’s touched it in and he wasn’t given offside. I’d like to see that again. 

“The problem we’ve got is to senior referee is senior. The officials on the line are low, low levels, they don’t see things what happen. They’re big decisions that they get wrong and they get them wrong every single week.

“I always look at the key decisions and the big decisions and I’d say the first goal’s offside and we should’ve had a penalty tonight on Danny Mills, the geezer absolutely bear hugged him in the back, just pulled him down.  It’s a blatant penalty, it’s a stonewall penalty!”

King added: “Take all of that aside, I think Dulwich done well. I thought they were hungrier, they had more desire than us. I felt they were really up for the game, massively up for the game.”

Dulwich Hamlet winger Nyren Clunis latched onto a long ball over the top from Green to cut into the penalty area down the right-hand side and his low shot towards the bottom far corner was parried by Welling United keeper Dan Wilks, diving low to his right, but the offside flag was raised when striker Gavin Tomlin tapped the ball over the line from close range after only 125 seconds on the clock.

Rose said: “A good attack, nice and quick down the side. Nyren getting a shot off and Gavin shouldn’t have touched it really and Nyren would’ve scored.”

King was clearly upset when Dulwich Hamlet scored from a similar position, with the clock showing three minutes and 33 seconds.

Ashley Carew floated in a deep free-kick from the left, which was hooked back across goal on the volley by Michael Chambers at the far post and the ball was tapped over the line at the far post by Green from similar range as Tomlin’s one.

Rose said: “We’ll take it.  I can’t tell you if that (being offside) was the case or not but we’ll take it. It was a good goal.

“I thought the first 10-15 minutes were good and then we sort of had opportunities to control the game and we gave the ball away at times when we didn’t really need to and then we gave them opportunities to load the box and that’s how the corner came about for the goal.”

King added: “He’s tapped it in on the goal line so it’s offside! He gave the offside for one of the goals that they’ve scored, which was offside and it was a mirror image of that again. He’s touched it on from over the line when he’s standing on the line, so I’d like to see that.”

Talented Welling United winger Nassim L’Ghoul swept a long diagonal pass which was brought down by Danny Mills and his poor attempt from a tight angle took a deflection and went behind for a Welling corner.

But Welling United grabbed an equaliser following their second corner of the night, which was timed at 16 minutes and 57 seconds.

Dulwich Hamlet goalkeeper Preston Edwards failed to organise any men on either post and paid the ultimate price.

Set-piece specialist Montel Agyemang played in a low corner from the right and no one picked up centre-half Orlu who had the simple task from the edge of the six-yard box of hooking a low volley into the vacated bottom far corner of the net, despite Edwards getting his left-hand to the ball before nestling into the net.

King said: “I was glad for Richard because Richard has been out for two months and it’s nice for him to come back and get a goal and get ourselves back in it.”

Rose added: “More importantly there was no challenge on Orlu, no challenge you’d expect. He was in the middle of our goals and you expect a solid challenge and he shouldn’t be getting a free effort like that so probably more concerned with the lack of attention in the box.”

Dulwich Hamlet immediately went up the other end and went close.

Sanchez Ming delivered a deep cross from the right, the ball was knocked down by Anthony Cook inside the box and Clunis swept his left-footed shot past the right-hand post from the edge of the box.

Rose added: “I was happy with that left-foot finish. He took it nice and early, he failed to control it the way that he wanted to.”

Agyemang curled in a free-kick into the Dulwich Hamlet box from the right, the ball was flicked on by Matt Paterson and winger Brendan Kiernan hooked the ball over his shoulder from the by-line and watched it drop over the crossbar.

“Brandan Kiernan and Nassim L’Ghoul are very good players. A lot of credit to Nathan Green and Sanchez Ming.  Nathan’s been playing with an injury as well, both done fantastic against the two wide men, they’re two of the best wide men in this league.”

Green almost scored from a back-heal from inside the six-yard box, which trickled past Wilks but Welling United’s left-back Caden Genovesi was there to clear the ball off the line from the centre of the goal.

Both managers were asked their thoughts at the interval.

“I was fairly happy, I wasn’t happy with the way we lost a goal, of course, but I was happy with the level of our performance,” said Rose.

“We just tried to speak about a couple of things that we could do to improve it and stay consistent and I was generally happy. I just asked them to do a couple of things to keep the momentum on.”

King added: “I don’t think we hit our standards tonight, none of the players hit their standards that they’ve been setting themselves this season.

“I just told them they’re nowhere near their standards. We’re one-all and they’re nowhere near our levels, nowhere our levels that we’re capable of being.”

Welling United came out for the second half with all guns blazing but they lacked any real quality in the final third and Edwards had a relatively quiet night.

Danny McNamara threw the ball to Mills, who ran down the right channel before wrapping his foot around the ball to cross into the Hamlet box. In an attempt to clear, Dulwich centre-half Chambers headed clearance bounced off Paterson and an alert Edwards grabbed hold of the ball as it landed straight at him.

King said: “I think you make your own luck but as I said we weren’t good enough tonight.”

Rose added:  “They clearly played with a higher line and they got the ball forward a little bit quicker and played a little bit more direct and it made it a little bit harder for us to control the tempo of the game but I thought we worked hard and we made it hard for them to penetrate us and really get in behind us.

“It wasn’t easy for them to cross the ball but I felt we managed that situation a lot better and there was a point then when I felt we needed to make substitutions to change the course of the game a little bit and I’m really happy with the boys that came on and they came on and made an impact.”

There was controversy in the 54^th minute when Dulwich Hamlet centre-half Okuonghae committed a bookable challenge to send L’Ghoul crashing to the ground on the very edge of the box in a central position.

Referee Jason Richardson had earlier booked Okuonghae for kicking the ball away but got away with it as the referee failed to even speak to the Dulwich Hamlet defender.

Agyemang went close when he stroked his right-footed free-kick sailing just over the crossbar as he tried to place the ball into the top-left-hand corner.

“The big decisions were poor and I will look at those decisions and we’ll go from there,” said King.

“The goalkeeper was rooted, he didn’t move for the free-kick and it just missed the crossbar.

“They’re big decisions. He (the referee) was quick to put the yellow card out for us for every tackle and five (Okuonghae) took Nassim out and he’s already on a yellow – it’s a red card!

“It changes games then, 10 men against 11, it changes games but deep down I know we didn’t reach the levels that we’re capable of tonight.”

Rose admitted: “We rode our luck there. We could’ve conceded, it was a good free-kick. We felt that was the time for Magnus to come off because if he had one more, he probably would’ve been sent off and I thought Ibrahim Kargbo came on and done really well.”

While Welling United were on the front foot for most of the second half, they lacked the quality and Dulwich Hamlet grabbed the winner with 28 minutes and 59 seconds on the clock.

Ming had a great game against his old club and he was released down the right wing and he cut into the box and put it on a plate for super-sub Akinyemi to tap the ball over the line at the far post from a couple of yards out.

“The thing is Sanchez is a former winger and he does so well in one-v-one situations,” explained Rose.

“Sometimes he plays more defensively but we know he can still get up and down and we know that he’s got enough about him to cause the other team problems defensively and he done that very well today. Before the goal he had two or three that were nice and low and he made them defend it and the third time it was a very good cross and Dipo scored.

“Dipo can’t miss, Dipo done well. He had a sniff and he’ll always think about getting into those areas to score but the ball from Sanchez was very good and it was a well-worked goal.”

King added: “The marking was shocking! It was one against four in the six-box box, one against four and the right-back travelled too far and he’s picked his pass and he did what he wanted to do.”

Welling United manager King’s response was to bring on Bradley Goldberg and John-Paul Kissock – who drives down from Liverpool for matches and training – but 10 minutes wasn’t enough for the pair.

Goldberg cut the ball back for Kissock, who played Kiernan in behind Green and Kiernan cut inside and his left-footed rasping drive from 20-yards was comfortably caught by Edwards.

King admitted the attempt was “power-puff”.

“We weren’t good enough and it wasn’t our levels that we’re used to, simple as that,” he added.

Dulwich Hamlet play their last game at Imperial Fields when fourth-placed Torquay United visit on Saturday, while Welling United host third-from-bottom side Hungerford Town at Park View Road.

King said: “Take the game to Hungerford! We’ve got the best home record in the league so it’s another home game. We’ve got to try to get three points if we can but they’re not going to make it easy for us.  Teams aren’t going to make it easy for us and roll over for us. We have to earn the right. If we can get three points at home, long may it continue.

“I think we’re punching above our weight a little bit if you look at the big sides that have the finances and that but we’re doing well.”

Wingate & Finchley are in the bottom five in the Bostik Premier Division but Rose expects a tough examination especially after they beat Vanrama National League South side Chippenham Town 3-2 at home in last night’s replay.

The Hamlet banked £5,000 in prize money after beating their local rivals Welling United tonight and Rose is looking forward to seeing an old player of his in centre-half Marc Weatherstone.

“It’s weird because we haven’t really thought about the financial side of things.  I think more importantly we’re just trying to get a run of wins and consistency going,” said Rose.

“I thought over the two games with Welling we were very competitive against a very good team in our league and our job is to try to continue being competitive week-in-week-out.  I just felt because it’s a very good team in our league it was an important win for us and if we can continue on Saturday in that vein that will be good for us.

“I don’t think that league positions mean that much in terms of where they are in the league and stuff like that,” Rose said of Wingate & Finchley. 

“It’s an one-off game. We’ve proved a few seasons ago we were beating Conference South teams and done well against National League teams as well in The FA Trophy from the Bostik League so it doesn’t really matter that much.

“They’ve got some good players, they have one of my former players in Marc Weatherstone and I know he’ll get the best out of his team as well. I expect it to be a tough game. We’re away as well so that will be tough so we need to do really well to get through.”

Dulwich Hamlet: Preston Edwards, Cheick Toure, Nathan Green, Ashley Carew, Magnus Okunonghae (Ibrahim Kargbo 59), Michael Chambers, Nyren Clunis, Dominic Vose, Gavin Tomlin (Nathan Ferguson 71), Anthony Cook (Afolabi Akinyemi 71), Sanchez Ming.
Subs: Iffy Allen, Jay May

Goals: Nathan Green 4, Afolabi Akinyemi 74

Booked: Magnus Okuonghae 33, Dominic Vose 56

Welling United: Dan Wilks, Danny McNamara (Bradley Goldberg 80), Caden Genovesi, Montel Agyemang, Richard Orlu, Yannis Ambroisine, Brendan Kiernan, David Ijaha (John-Paul Kissock 80), Matt Paterson, Danny Mills, Nassim L’Ghoul.
Subs: Mohammed Hajizadeh, Arnaud Mendy, Anthony Acheampong

Goal: Richard Orlu 17

Booked: Caden Genovesi 29, David Ijaha 45, John-Paul Kissock 87, Montel Agyemang 90

Attendance: 217
Referee: Mr Jason Richardson (Northwood, Middlesex)
Assistants: Mr Ivan Gelov (Bermondsey, London SE1) & Mr Luke Donaldson (Tooting, London SW17)