Two late goals earned Sevenoaks Town a come from behind victory against VCD Athletic.

After the game, Sevenoaks manager Micky Collins was relieved to have won after recent games have gone against them. “We needed that, we needed that.” he said. “It’s been like that every week. We’ve been so close but just haven’t been able to get over the line.

“I thought we were comfortable in the game. I don’t think we were too stretched. I thought both sides evened each other out and then they scored from a set piece, well worked, we haven’t picked up. And then it’s ‘can we come back?’ and I said if we equalise, I think we’ll go on to win it and fortunately, we did.”

Collins was pleased with the contributions from the two players, Ryan Hayes and Andy Pugh, signed on dual registration from Dartford, who both scored. He said “It’s great that the two boys have combined for the winner and Haysie’s got the ricochet, which he reckons he’s played for, and we’ve got back into the game. I’m chuffed for the boys but I’m gutted for my mate Keith (VCD manager, Keith McMahon) because a draw probably would have been a fair result but someone had to get the win and we did.”

Pugh only entered the fray for his Sevenoaks debut with under twenty minutes remaining but made an impact. Collins purred “You expect no less with Pughy. The one thing that we’ve been missing is a goal-scorer and you can see it there. He’s a poacher and that’s what he’s done all his career. He’s got a kick in the face already. He’s got marked already.

“I just said to him ‘Don’t tell them at Dartford that I did it in case you missed one.’, When you’ve got people like Haysie, getting fitter and delivering the ball, you’ve got a chance. I’m chuffed with them because they’re people that we brought in and we got the subs right as well.”

He continued “It’s a good dressing room at the moment and the boys deserve it. We, as the management team, have worked very hard at it in the last few weeks, especially with injuries. We lost two right backs on Thursday night in training so we’ve had to change it again. A centre half ends up at right back. A midfielder ends up at centre half then you go in and put in a decent performance in terrible conditions.”

Expanding on that, Collins added “The first half was awful. It was too windy and no-one got to grips with it. We actually played better into the wind in the second half and I said that if we can play for the lines and keep the ball down we’d have more of a chance and I thought that we did.

“Confidence wise, you could see in the first half we were a bit tepid. We lacked confidence and that’s from not winning. Today, they’ve got the result and hopefully we’ll go Tuesday night (to East Grinstead Town), if it’s on, and go and get another result.”

Short term aims for Collins are pretty simple. He said “Just finish as high as we can really. Bed everyone in, everyone that we’ve got here. We’ve still got two boys who’ve got to have operations. They won’t be back (this season). Just try and get some points and see how high we can finish. Can we beat last year?

“We finished tenth so can we beat that and can we get some momentum going into the summer. That’s the most important thing, especially with some of the great signings we’ve made. It’s how we finish the season that gives us the momentum for next.”