Sittingbourne go into tonight’s Isthmian Southeast derby with Herne Bay at Woodstock unbeaten in five League games on the back of Saturday’s 6-0 drubbing of Erith and Belvedere. 

Indeed since February, Ryan Maxwell’s side have lost just two of their last nineteen League games (the last game of last season and the first of this), but Saturday’s win was possibly one of the Brickies’ best performances, as the manager admitted, “it was a great day all round – what more could I ask from our team when you’ve won in such a convincing matter; scoring six goals, keeping a clean sheet and rarely being troubled – I think Bobby (Mason, the Sittingbourne keeper), had one save to make – we were incredibly comfortable.”

“Really happy with the way it went, but really important now that we turn our attention to another big game on Tuesday night.” 

The Brickies took the lead against Erith with a Javaun Splatt penalty – the striker’s first goal for the club – after the referee awarded a spot-kick for handball.

The lead was doubled shortly before half time with a brilliantly worked second when skipper Bagasan Graham raced through onto Ayman’s brilliant through ball which was drilled into the bottom corner. 

The second period was one way traffic. Chris Harris netted the third after substitute Sadik Balarabe’s first touch as a Sittingbourne player came back off a post.

It was four nil when another sub – Manny Osei-Owusu – nipped into lob home from twenty yards, and a second penalty, this time netted by Jean-Baptiste Fischer after the midfielder had himself made it five. 

A wonderful team performance was rounded off in the last minute when Graham hammered his second and his side’s sixth from the edge of the box and the result lifts the Brickies into third place in the early season standings. 

There is likely to be at least four ex-Sittingbourne players in the Herne Bay squad on Tuesday and that does not include boss Steve Lovell – a fact that Maxwell is well aware of.

“Lots of players have played for a lot of previous clubs around Kent – it’s nothing new there,” he told us.

“It is business as usual for me; it’s Herne Bay next and we are in a decent run of form. They got a point at Broadbridge on Saturday meaning that it’s third versus fourth on Tuesday, but again even that is not important to me now as the League is all over the place at the moment given the different number of games that sides have played.”

“I do not even look at the table until everyone has played ten games,” Maxwell admitted.

“The League isn’t settled yet – that will take another couple of months probably and all we can do is to focus on our next game and make sure we get it right.” 

“Three points are available on Tuesday night and that’s just about it!” 

Maxwell named an unchanged side that beat Erith and has a full squad to choose from in midweek and told us, “I was more than happy with our draw at Sevenoaks in our previous game and I think it would have been a bit unjust if I’d have made changes for the sake of it!”