Ware 2 Waltham Abbey 1

By Stephen King

Kamanan's quality goal seals the points as Ware return to 7th in the table.

Ware exorcised the disappointment of Saturday's defeat when they denied Abbey a share of the points in the last minute of normal time.

A poor first half performance had seen them go a goal down to a team that looked better organised and buoyed by their own comeback victory on Saturday. By contrast Ware had made changes after their defeat at Mildenhall and seemed unable to fire on all cylinders with Murat Karagul injured, Ryan Hervel and Finbarr Robins seemingly dropped and Josh Oyibo possibly on his way out.

So after some initial sparring which saw Yannick Kamanan send an early free kick narrowly wide and Ahmed Abdulla set free after 20 minutes only to have his shot blocked, Abbey started to take some control.

26 photos

Match photos

By the half hour mark the visitors engineered a break which ended with Gareth Madden having to deal with two attackers of whom Christian Assombalonga took the chance to shoot past Tom Coulton from close range for the lead. It might have been 2-0 ten minutes later but Coulton brought off a good stop from another close range shot.

Ware did look better after half time with Abdulla dropping back into a more defensive role and Marcus Milner and Rheo Josephs having greater influence carrying the ball forward. Ten minutes in it almost paid off as Milner's cross was met by Kamanan who lifted it narrowly wide.

Even so there seemed to be an over reliance on high crosses which played into the hands of the visiting defence. And yet on 62 minutes another cross from Milner out on the right wing started to drift in towards goal and had Lewis Lockyer back peddling in vain as the ball went over his head and hands to find the back of the net.

Now Ware saw the possibility of getting at least a point out of the game and with a defence that has yet to concede more than one goal in any league game they made Abbey look less impressive going forward. This seemed to be reinforced when Aron Gordon, a thorn in Ware's side both with his ball skills and his physical presence, was substituted.

Yet it remained anyone's game and most home supporters would have been happy with a point as they watched with anxiety when the visitors mounted some late attacks. But in the final minute of normal time Kamanan was given the ball 40 yards out from goal on the left side of the pitch, as the ball was teed up he turned and volleyed it over Lockyer but under the bar to give Ware the points.

It was a goal worth the entrance fee on its own as demonstrated by the reception given by fans to its scorer when the final whistle was blown three minutes later; but it cannot disguise the need for a better all round team effort if Ware are to progress past Witham in next Saturday's FA Cup game.

Ware: Tom Coulton, Junior Appiah, Alaa Oujdi, Denzel Conteh (Courtney Clay 60mins), Gareth Madden, Lee White, Marcus Milner, Ahmed Mohammed, Yannick Kamanan, Ahmed Abdulla, Rheo Josephs (Prince Madu 74mins). Unused subs: Bradley Kay, Oreoluwa Ogunleye, Symeon Taylor.