Sevenoaks Town boss Micky Collins has been considering on what might have been as his team prepare to travel this weekend to play the South East Division’s FA Cup success story from earlier in the season, Chichester City.

Speaking to KSN this week, Collins was in a reflective mood following his side’s win over VCD Athletic last weekend – their first win in five games.

He told us, “We needed it to be honest as we’ve had a bit of an up and down spell over the past few weeks – it did us a world of good to get a good result! It’s always close when we play Keith’s (McMahon) sides; there had to be a winner, I’m just glad that it was us!”

“I know Keith thought it was a bit controversial at the end, but video evidence showed the winner was onside. It went to the wire and was a bit of a scrappy game, probably a draw was a fair result.”

Collins has recently been able to sign Ryan Hayes and Andy Pugh on dual registrations from Dartford. “It’s the calibre of what we’re doing and it’s nice!” Collins admitted.

“They’ve got a big choice of clubs where they want to go to, and they chose us. It’s a good thing – Haysie came over first and reported back to Pughie that he was enjoying it and so he came over as well – it’s a feather in our cap, I think!”

“It’s going to be up to us to negotiate in the summer and see what they want to do, and we’ll wait and see; I know that they’re enjoying it and that’s the main thing!”

Ten games are left for Sevenoaks and Collins’ side find themselves ten points off the Play Off places – a position the manager accepts is about right.

“It is probably but I think it’s a gauge of where we are – that’s our level” he said.

He went on, “the League table never changes and doesn’t lie – at the end of the day we are where we’re suppose to be in my opinion. We can all look back and say we could have won that and whatever, but the only thing I would say and I know everyone goes through it, but we’ve had the worst injury crisis I’ve ever known since I’ve been in football and that impacts you badly.”

“It’s been incessant all season – we get one back and we then lose two or three and they’re all long terms needing operations!”

“That’s had a bit of a down turn on the results but at the end of the day, if someone had told me two years ago that we’d go into this League and finish in the top ten we’d have taken that, so it’s not the end of the world!”

As for this weekend’s challenge, Collins said:

“They’re a good side – a really good side who are one of the best sides that we’ve played this year! It’ll be tough down there, plus the M23 is shut again this weekend.”

“I just hope that the rain stays off so that we don’t have to go there midweek. We lost East Grinstead on Tuesday so had a training session back at our place – that’s three times that games have been called off and we’re now running out of Tuesdays now. “

“So hopefully Saturday will be on and we’ll get down there and get the game on! It’s a bit of a non-event when you must play teams back-to-back if I’m honest; it makes the second one just feels a bit of a non-event really as was proved recently.”

“But with the weather that we’ve had it’s been unprecedented but what can you do especially when you haven’t got 3G – you’re going to be in trouble!”