Maidstone United’s manager, Jay Saunders was remarkably calm after his side’s tense 2-1 injury time victory over Ramsgate.

It was a game that must have tested the blood pressure of the majority of the 1790 crowd inside the Gallagher Stadium.

He said “I thought overall we were quite comfortable today, we just lacked in the final third because we’ve had some great chances.  It was just one of those days, as I felt we needed a goal to be OK and, alright there’s been a mix-up for their equaliser, but on chances alone, I thought we deserved it.”

Stuart King’s winner in the first of what turned out to be nine minutes of stoppage time, due to an injury to former Maidstone goalkeeper, Darren Hawkes, clinched the three points.

Alex Flisher had calmly slotted past Hawkes to give Maidstone the lead on 64 minutes, but a lack of communication between Steve Watt and Deren Ibrahim saw Watt glance Warren Schulz’s screwed shot past his helpless keeper with nine minutes left.  But with Dulwich also winning, this would be a vital three points for the home side.

Saunders unusually reserved praise for the two midfielders who were both sent off in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Bourne Park against Sittingbourne, adding:

“I thought Danny Lye and Mickey Phillips in the middle controlled the game, but it’s hard to single out players, because they all worked very hard.  It’s always hard to do two games in three days, especially at this level.  It’s not like the boys who are full-time, who can manage their time.  Some of the boys have been into work over the weekend, but they’ve dug deep; it would have been easy to throw in the towel when they scored late on, but they kept going and got their rewards.”

“When you have as many chances as we did today and don’t take them, you always worry they’re going to nick one, but we kept going to the end and got the second goal.”

Maidstone seemed to adapt their normally free-flowing play to nullify their opponents, and that seemed to affect their performance, until centre-back Jerrome Sobers was forced off through injury forcing a reshuffle.

Saunders explained “I wasn’t expecting Rory (Hill) to be injured and Kaiyne (Woolery) hasn’t played for a few weeks, so we played a bit narrower.  It wasn’t out of choice, but something we had to look at.  We did lose a bit with Millsy going back, but at that stage we were on the front foot anyway, so it enabled John (Harley) to get forward more, as he couldn’t where it was so congested in the middle.”

“Jerrome was struggling with his groin, but then pulled up with his hamstring, so if it is, he could be long-term, and we’re down to our bare bones at the moment.  Rory Hill has pulled up since Saturday, so we’ve had to leave him out; (Steve Watt) Watty was struggling with his calf, but he’s managed to play through.  We really are short through injuries.  We’ve got a big squad, but today we had four forwards on the bench, so it’s hard to make changes when it’s like that.  Luckily Tom Mills can slot in at centre-half, John (Harley) went to left-back, but it could cause us problems if it goes on this way.”

At one stage we worked out that Maidstone had SEVEN first-team players missing through injury, but even with a big squad, the Stones’ boss was grateful that he has no midweek game for the first time in 5 weeks.

He said “We’ve got a nice couple of days off now (before a trip to Three Bridges on Saturday), so we can get everyone in and assess how they are.  Hopefully we’ll have a few back, but it’s a case of wait and see.  I think Alex Brown is struggling with his knee; it’s a case that if he gets a knock he could do serious damage, so he needs to strengthen his knee up.”

Looking forward to the weekend, Saunders added “It will be a tough game there, they are on a good run at the moment.  They’ve brought a few players in , are desperate to stay at this level, and people always say it’s tough against teams pushing for playoffs, but it’s just as hard against those desperate to survive.  I’ve said to the lads that if we keep winning our games, and Dulwich end up winning theirs, then we’ll pat them on the back and say well done.  Hopefully, they’ll slip up and we’ll be there to take advantage of it.”

“The boys are still disappointed after Saturday (the 2-1 reverse at Sittingbourne), but everyone knows what happened Saturday.  One person undid all the effort we put in at Dulwich, and that’s put us in the position we’re in at the moment.  All we can do is keep winning games.”  Although he must be hoping his side don’t leave it as late as this game!