United line-up: Barrett, Matt Joseph, Granville, Wanless (Thompson 84), Craddock, Raynor, Hayes, Hyde, Kyd (Turner 80), Barnwell, Beall (Preece 82).
Booked: Wanless 38 (foul)

Ben Mynott was unable to attend the match but his Dad provided a report and ratings:
An efficient performance, with the game sown up after half an hour or so. some good moves but some indifferent play. In the second half CU played as if they were just seeing out time. Certainly nearly all the good football was first half.

The defence was a bit shaky until Matt moved from a kind of right back to the centre of a three man defence. Welling's attacks had looked dangerous for a while down the middle. If this was a McFarland tactical switch, then he gains full marks because it worked a treat. You might remember I said earlier in the season how well I thought Matt played in the centre of a three man defence and he excelled there on Saturday.

Matt even found time to link up in some attacks with neat 1-2's with Micah and Wanless. However, on to the goals and the ratings as Mum doesn't want this report to be too long. The first goal was hard to see from the footpath approaching the Habbin turnstiles. You could certainly hear the roar and the announcement that the first Cambridge United goal was scored by Billy Beall. You can gather from this that I was late and will tell you all the story about that at the weekend.

The second goal came from a free kick on the left, taken as nearly always by Paul Raynor. It was a well worked move. Raynor shaped to curl a right-footed, inswinging cross as Hayes dummied to cross left-footed but then ran on along the left side. Raynor pushed the ball with perfect weight to the byline on the left where Hayes put in a good cross to the near post for Kyd to have the simple task of rising to nod the ball in the back of the net.

The third goal came after good work on the right opened up the Welling defence. A low cross was met by Barnwell's knee or shin for what we think was his first goal of the season. I can't remember everyone involved in the move but I think Micah, Raynor and Kyd were.

Ollie (Morah) looked fit but once the defence had been reorganised Welling rarely looked like scoring. Having said that a couple of times before the reorganisation they might well have scored 2 goals.

Ratings and comments:

Barrett    6   (not a lot to do)

Joseph     9   (clear MOM, read the game superbly well and seemed to be 
everywhere.  Even seemed to win more than his fair share of balls in the 
air.  Was made official MOM and then promptly headed off the line in the 
only dangerous moment for us in the second half).

Granville  7   (looked fairly assured)

Craddock   6   (still can't pass)

Hayes      7   (mostly for the cross, in the second half he seemed only 
capable of passing the ball back to Granville)

Beall      5   (harried a lot but the other guy usually had the ball. 
Tired at the end and was replaced)

Hyde       6.5 (beat 4 or 5 players on a few occasions but then ran into a 
dead end)

Wanless    7   (worked hard in front of the defence but also tired)

Raynor     8   (clearly the second best player on the team)

Kyd        6   (good goal, reasonable work rate)

Barnwell   4   (still looks out of place, had one or two exciting runs in 
the second half which tempted me to give him more)

The subs of Turner, Preece and Thompson were not on very long and didn't
score that highly if I was prepared to give them a score.  Turner came on
to the inevitable loudest boo of the day.

In summary, an encouraging start. If McFarland really can read the game as well as he implied he might from the tactical switch with Matt, then we could be on a good thing with this man.

Terry Wilby's report and ratings:
If we were unlucky not to score 5 against Swansea, this week we were lucky not to conceed 4 against Welling. Roy MacFarland got some good applause as he made his way to the bench at the start of the game.

The team was as expected, although the formation seemed a bit odd with Wanless playing in front of Craddock, Joseph and Granville as full backs. The 5 man midfield of Hayes, Barnwell, Hyde, Beall and Raynor relied on Raynor and Hayes helping in defence, with Kyd at the front.

All three goals came from penetrating runs on the wings followed by good crosses to the unmarked man in the centre, goals for Beall (2 mins) Kyd (20) and Barnwell (34). Kyd also missed another similar chance. Welling had chances in the first half. A free header was put wide, a run through on goal was put wide, and a couple of long range shots also went wide.

United were not really troubled, but then we didn't play at all well. If we hadn't scored early on it may have been different. They were a big physical side and their defence (especially their number 4) got everything in the air, but on the ground we looked much better.

The draw for the next round has us at home to Woking or Millwall.

Barrett        5
Joseph         6
Granville      7.1 MoM just!
Wanless        7
Craddock       5
Raynor         6
Hayes          5
Hyde           6
Kyd            5
Barnwell       6
Beall          6

Turner and Preece had a short time in place of Kyd and Beall but did little. I can't remember if Thompson came on though.

Around half the expected 500 Welling supporters got there, crowd was 3,187, although there seemed to be more in the Abbey. Habbin and Main stand were sparser than expected.

Terry Wilby.

Many thanks to Ben Mynott and Terry Wilby for their reports.

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