Spitfires draw 2-2 at Welling as unbeaten start continues

James Constable had pounced for his fourth goal of a personally prolific opening to the campaign to hand the visitors a first-half lead, writes Paul McNamara.

A spirited home side hit back to lead, however - a Jamie Turley own goal and then Xavier Vidal’s second-half effort turning the game on its head before Strevens’ leveller.

Spitfires’ boss Richard Hill confessed his side had “got out of jail”, but was satisfied with the draw. “When we scored the first goal, we should have asserted out authority on the game, but we didn’t do that,” he said. “Welling is always a tough place to come, but with our performance I’m happy we’ve got a point. Whether we deserved it or not, I don’t know, but we’ve got it.”

A game that developed a spiky edge the longer it went on had actually started in pretty sedate fashion.

Josh Payne’s 16th-minute effort, dragged wide of the left upright from distance, was the first shot on goal from either side. There was a bit more purpose to the Spitfires’ next attack when Lee Cook strode onto Ross Lafayette’s pass into the left of the hosts’ area. He went on to jink his way free of giant centre-half Michael Chambers before smashing the ball across the face of goal and beyond the far post.

Eastleigh’s breakthrough, when it arrived, was a masterpiece in its construction, far out of keeping with anything that had been produced in the preceding 22 minutes. Dan Harding and Cook started it with some bright one-touch football on the left and then Lafayette, Andy Drury and Jack Midson all shifted the ball on at speed. Welling heads were spinning by the time Midson’s final pass found Constable with all the time in the world in the middle of the box. The on-song Spitfires’ forward made no mistake, rolling a clinical finish low into the left of goal.

With their advantage established, the visitors appeared well set to take control of proceedings. That they didn’t left boss Hill rueing: “The thing that annoys me a little bit is that at 1-0 up that was our opportunity to go on and exert our authority on the game, and we didn’t. We gave the ball away too cheaply, too often. When you do that, you will end up on the back foot.”

When Welling conjured up their 31st-minute equaliser, it came as something as a shock to the visitors’ systems, not least that of Turley. It was the Eastleigh skipper’s unfortunate deflection on Ben Jefford’s cross, after the left-back had been sent away by Ricky Wellard’s pass, that left Michael Poke helplessly wrong-footed in the Spitfires’ goal as the ball limped over the line to the ’keeper’s right.

The same Wellard-Jefford combination was soon seeking to cause the away team’s rearguard another headache. Turley was the defender on hand, once more, grateful to see his sliding intervention on the full-back’s centre carry the ball safely into his No1’s hands.

Welling had gained a foothold and the Kent outfit sought to capitalise. A Xavier Vidal pass out left eluded Will Evans, enabling Wellard to gather and advance into the box. The former Sutton man dawdled, however, giving Evans the opportunity to nip back in and clear.

With the Spitfires clinging on for the break, Reece Harris drifted inside from the right to shoot and draw a fine stop from Poke, down inside the ’keeper’s left-hand post. Seconds later, the away stopper was off his mark quickly to sweep up outside his box, preventing George Porter from getting hold of Harris’s through ball.

There was no change to the narrative after the interval. Joe Partington was completely undone by a freak bounce down the Spitfires’ right, with Porter swooping to gather and race on goal. The former Leyton Orient player could only steer his shot wide of the far post, however.

Porter didn’t have to wait long for his next gilt-edge opportunity. Wellard took charge, after Partington’s ball into the midfield was intercepted, sliding a pass through for Porter, who was repelled by Poke down to the stopper’s right. Vidal, following up under pressure from Evans, could only fire over when he seemed certain to convert from a yard out.

There was some respite for the under-the-cosh visitors when Turley was first to a Reason corner to drive an effort at goal that clipped a home defender on its way over the top. Reason, who had entered the fray along with Strevens in the 57th minute, then began to impose himself on the action, drifting infield and slipping a pass through the middle for Constable, whose first-time strike was parried away by home glovesman Tom King. When Welling got back on the front foot, though, they did so to maximum effect. Wellard, having started the attack with another ball down the left for Jefford, continued forward to eventually receive possession from Sam Corne. The winger bustled his way into the box, the ball ricocheting left for Vidal, who forced his way past the smothering Poke’s challenge to gleefully thump into an empty net.

The hosts were only in the ascendancy for seven minutes, though. Another Spitfires’ substitute, Yemi Odubade, had struck wide with a left-footed volley, before Reason dusted himself down after being upended by Harry Lee, to lift the free-kick to the back-post, where Strevens was waiting to head back across King and inside the keeper’s right-hand post.

Poke still had to produce one more stop, pushing Zach Fagan’s six-yard header from Wellard’s free-kick out from under his bar to secure his team their point.

“If any positive has come from the game, it’s that we’ve kept going, found something from somewhere and got an equaliser,’ concluded Hill. “But that wasn’t the sort of performance I’m seeing from us on a regular basis, and we have to do better than that. Sometimes our defending, which has been assured before tonight, was a bit erratic for no apparent reason.

“But give Welling a lot of credit. They were the better team on the night, without any shadow of a doubt. But we’ve found something, from somewhere.”