A slow start cost Deal in their surprise loss at struggling Welling Town.

The Hoops could have gone third in the Southern Counties East Premier Division - just two points behind second-placed Rusthall - with a win but they found themselves 3-0 down on Monday inside 29 minutes.

Deal rallied after the restart through goals from on-loan 19-year-old Dover defender Alex Green, Ben Chapman and Riley Alford, but the hosts ran out 4-3 winners.

Manager Steve King reflected: “I was pleased with the response from the boys in the second half. We really dug in and kept going until the end.

“But in any level of football, you can’t concede three goals in 30 minutes and a goal after two minutes.

“Credit to them, they took their chances and they were dangerous going forward. They certainly outperformed their league position.

“But we have been defending well recently. We’d had two clean sheets on the bounce but, on Monday, we shot ourselves in the foot.

“Despite making a really good fist of it to try and get back into it, we just left ourselves with too much to do.”

Green’s effort was his first for the club and, although the Hoops were already three behind at that stage, King felt the defeat was down to a disappointing team performance, rather than a poor defensive display.

The boss, who admitted in hindsight he’d perhaps rotated his pack too much, said: “It wasn’t down to any individual why things didn’t work for us collectively.

“We weren’t good enough as a group, not just the defenders. All over the pitch, we weren’t good enough.

“Collectively, second half, we did very well and everybody put a real shift in.

"It was, obviously, an absolute killer to concede a goal in the second half. They had very few chances and hit us on the counter.

“That was frustrating, but to go out and score three goals in 45 minutes when you are down and out in a way, that says a lot about the players.

“Obviously Greeny got a goal to get off the mark, Riley got another one and we had some other chances, as well as Ben’s goal, but it’s very disappointing.

“We can’t have periods in a game of football like we had.”

Deal have been boosted by the loan return of winger Troy Howard from Margate. He made his first appearance on his Charles Sports Ground comeback on December 27, netting to cap a 5-0 home win over Kennington.

“Troy was with us a long time so he knows exactly how we do things,” said King, who also had Herne Bay hitman Rory Smith on loan earlier this season.

“I think he started playing for me when he was 14. So there was never any worry about him.

“We know he offers a different threat.

"He’s a good player and, hopefully over the next month or so, he adds to those attacking options.”

This Saturday, Deal host Punjab before attention switches to an FA Vase game at Corsham and then a Kent Senior Trophy quarter-final against Snodland.

“One strength we have as a group is we stick together,” said King.

“We showed that in the second half on Monday. We didn’t go out and roll over. We have given it a really good go.

“We won’t let this derail us. We’ll stick together and we still have a big month ahead.

“I said to the boys afterwards, if we get to April and miss out by a couple of points, Monday will be one of those days we look back on and think ‘Maybe that’s cost us’ - but we don’t want to be thinking that now!

“We’ll get in training this week, do all the video analysis we need to and then we need to get ready for Punjab. Then we have got a massive Vase game and a big quarter-final after.

“There’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves.

"We just need to get back to work and put it right.”