Welling manager Bradley Quinton says Sheppey were no better than his side in their FA Cup exit.

The Wings followed their 2-0 defeat at Southern Counties East Ites by going down 2-1 to a late goal at Maidstone in their National South opener on Tuesday.

But Quinton felt his side were superb at the Gallagher, with the FA Cup second qualifying round upset firmly out of their system.

“Listen, that was the FA Cup and they did what they needed to do to win,” said Quinton.

“It wasn’t that they were better than us, we made two mistakes on Saturday and it cost us, and that’s the FA Cup for you.

“We had 14/15 chances and we didn’t score, so you could have played till Sunday, so it was one of them.

“You flip it and you play that well tonight, I think for 65 minutes we were superb and first 45 we were exceptional.

“We deserved to be going in ahead and I thought we could have gone in maybe 2-0 really.

“It was one of those games where personally I felt whoever got the next goal in the second half was either going to go on and win it or have the upper hand.

“Again we’ve made a mistake and allowed them to come back in the game.

“I thought it was an exceptional first game of the season for two teams who were really going for it.

“It was a bit end to end at times and I think fans would have loved it so I do apologise, you’ve missed a cracking game I think.

"But, as a manager, there's a few grey hairs coming in and my voice is going a little bit because we could have cleared our lines at the end for the second one.”

Quinton, who felt his side should have had at least one penalty with the score 1-1, fears a stop-start campaign as the country negotiates a second wave of coronavirus.

He’s working with a new squad but feels there’s play-off potential at Park View Road.

He said: “It’s a brand new start really, barring two players.

“We always aim for play-offs, we always have a chance every week, my type of teams.

“We work hard, we get the ball down, we know how to be be an attacking team and there’s a lot of pace in the team and I think we will do well.

“There’s probably three or four players I want to bring in and I think I’ll be happy then.”

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