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Saturday 10 November 2007	CONFERENCE SOUTH
Dorchester Town 0 Welling United 0     458

1 Darren Behcet   2 Jamie Cumming   3 Nathan Simpson 4 Wes Fogden   5 Gary Bowles 6 Nathan Peprah-Annan   7 Ivan Forbes   8 James Rowe   9 Jones Awuah   10 Dani Rodrigues   11 Mark Jermyn   12 Jon Docker (9, 63 mins)   13 Simon Evans   14 Hardy Pinto-Moreira (10, 78 mins)   15 Jake Smeaton   16 Mark Robinson

Referee Mr. A. Davies Linesmen Mr. C. Hubbard Mr. D. Gillespie

1 Jamie Turner   2 Leon Solomon   3 Robbie Ryan 4 Neil Smith   5 Chris Moore   6 Tony Sinclair   7 Ellis Green   8 Sam Keevil   9 Omari Coleman   10 Andy Pugh   11 Marlon Patterson   12 Orlando Smith (3, 82 mins)   14 Charles Ademeno (10, 65 mins)   15 Lloyd Blackman   16 Jackson Ohakham (6, 45 mins)   17 Adam Cottrell

Neil Smith selected himself in midfield to replace the suspended Chippy, and in a bit of a surprise move the captaincy was handed to youngster Tony Sinclair for the first time in a top-flight match. New loan signing Charles Ademeno was on the bench.

The afternoon was bright and the match started in the same vein and continued with end-to-end play throughout, almost like a cup tie. The tone was soon set with both teams squandering chances, and this was to be the main feature in a game which each team badly needed to win. On top of that, both keepers were pulling off some good saves, with JT having a splendid game in the Wings goal. He made three excellent saves, two of them one-handed efforts in the opening quarter hour to deny the home side attack.

The Wings were failing for long periods to feed the ball to Ellis’s feet, but after a while he began to get better service and caused problems for the home defence down the Welling right flank. Pogo was making some good runs on the left, but the visitors’ central midfield was not making its mark and the strikers suffered through lack of service, with Coleman drifting back and wide in search of the ball. As half time approached things started to improve and both Coleman and Pugh fired off target before Omari saw a fine shot just pushed away by an equally fine one-handed save from Behcet in the home goal.

On the stroke of half time Sinclair collided with Gary Bowles whilst defending a corner; Bowles recovered quickly but the Wings captain stayed down and looked motionless; Chris Moore appeared to be affected by what he saw and went to sit on the bench while the medical team attended. It transpired that Tony had suffered a dislocated knee-cap that was soon returned to its proper position by the doctor before the player was stretchered off. Leon moved to centre back, Jackson Ohakham took over at right back and Mooro took the armband.

The second half continued with the same cup-tie approach, but now the Wings were making their presence felt more and started to create lots of chances. Coleman’s deflected shot almost beat the keeper but the save was top class and the score remained at 0-0. The visitors continued to have shots either a bit off target or blocked by the home defence, with Smith and Coleman almost opening the scoring.

On 65 minutes Ademeno replaced Pugh and began to show what he could do: quick, strong and with good vision, he immediately looked an asset. His play ruffled the home defence and at times he seemed to be one move or one thought ahead of his team-mates. It was his chasing late in the game that retrieved a loose ball wide of the post and laid it back to the onrushing Coleman whose fierce shot sped past the post and into the side netting.

Robbie Ryan appeared to pull a hamstring and was substituted on 82 minutes; Mucu came on on the left flank with Pogo dropping to left back.

A final flurry in injury time led to numerous blocked efforts in the home goalmouth, culminating with a header (from Mooro, I think) which was headed off the line at the far post to ensure that the match ended goalless. Both sides will have been disappointed not to have scored, and, whilst a draw was a reasonable result overall, the Wings probably left feeling that their increased pressure in the second half should have produced three points. A little more creativity and control in central midfield may be all that is needed to ensure that matches like this are won rather than drawn.

Kappa