Dawson starts knocking on McMahon's door

THAMESMEAD TOWN boss Keith McMahon says Lee Dawson has impressed him enough to feature at Great Wakering Rovers on Saturday, writes Stephen McCartney.

The 18-year-old right-sided midfielder took his chance during last night’s Ryman League Cup third round tie against holders Ramsgate.

But the club’s run in the competition ended as goals from Jay May, Ben Brown, Tom Tsangarides and Nick Davis, sealed a comfortable 4-0 win for the Ryman Premier League side.

All attention now turns to Saturday’s trip to Great Wakering Rovers and McMahon, speaking to www.kentishfootball.co.uk last night, says right-sided midfielder Dawson is very much in his plans for the trip to Essex.

“Lee Dawson, without a doubt, will be pushing for a first team place,” he said.

“I’ve been holding him back all year because there are bits of his game he needs to learn positionally. but he was outstanding tonight for a young lad of his age. He has a great future.”

McMahon rued slack defending against the Rams last night and admitted the Kent League champions are being punished for their mistakes at the higher level.

“If we played like we did without making mistakes, and I’ve said all season, we keep making mistakes and switch off at certain times and we get punished,” said McMahon.

“Our actual play is good enough to compete with most as long as we battle. James Brown and Robbie Tarrant were outstanding tonight - as well as Lee Dawson.

“We can battle with everyone, it’s just the consistency at this level and we know that.

“We can only work within the budget we’ve got and the tools that we’ve got.”

Having lost strikers, Rikki Cable and Richard Dimmock recently to Kent League clubs Tunbridge Wells and Erith & Belvedere respectively, McMahon has to reply on home-grown talent, and the loss of Pedro Knight, who is away in Spain, is a big blow to the club.

“They are big players for us,” admitted McMahon. “We’ve got good strength in depth with the youngsters, but at this level we can’t afford to miss three or four big players.

“That’s not an excuse, we knew that at the beginning of the season and we knew we were not going to win every game (but) win one and lose one.”

McMahon’s men played some good football in patches against the Rams, but didn’t have enough quality up front to trouble Jamie Turner in goal, although had Dawson scored with two headers than it might have been a different story.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s trip to Great Wakering Rovers, McMahon, whose side are in 17^th place and are 12 points clear of the drop, said: “If we play well like we did in patches tonight, we’ve got a chance of going down there and getting a result.

Reflecting on his side’s 2-0 home defeat to league leaders Aveley on Saturday, McMahon was pleased with his side’s performance.

He added: “We battled really well for sixty minutes and then we switched off and conceded two goals. They were the better side in the end, but we’ve got to do that all year round.”

Visit Thamesmead Town’s website: www.thamesmeadtownfc.co.uk

Great Wakering Rovers v Thamesmead Town
Ryman League Division One North
Saturday 10^th January 2009
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Burroughs Park, Little Wakering Hall Lane, Great Wakering, Essex SS3 0HH