Sittingbourne will look to bounce back from their first defeat of the season on Monday and progress in the Emirates FA Cup this weekend at the Staxson Stadium.
Standing in the way of Ryan Maxwell’s new-look Brickies are Danny Kedwell’s AFC Croydon Athletic side who have enjoyed a good start to the South East season and went above Sittingbourne in the early table on Monday when they won at Beckenham Town.
Last season’s FA Trophy Quarter Finalists also got to the Third Qualifying round of the Cup too – the furthest the Club had reached for nearly a decade, points that weren’t lost on Brickies boss Ryan Maxwell when he spoke to KSN this week.
“We are getting a great reputation in the Cups,” the Irishman admitted. “I always enjoy the FA Cup, we absolutely adored the FA Trophy last season, but there is always something extra special about the FA Cup worldwide and I hope it continues to be.
“We’re really looking forward to Saturday and a really good game, a good tough competitive game, we’re here at home at Fortress Woodstock and we have to protect that as well. Hopefully we’ll have good backing, and our fans will come out in numbers as we look to make more memories!”
“We always look forward to FA Cup matches especially when they are at Woodstock and I am sure that we will have a good game in front of the home fans this week against a team who have started really well in the League so we know that we are in for a really, really tough match against a team from our own League. Saturday will give us a chance to look at them for later in the season as I am sure that they will do of us.”
“But this is a Cup game and is full of anticipation and excitement, we are no strangers to each other, and we are all looking forward to.”
Reflecting on the Brickies Bank Holiday weekend – a 2-1 win over East Grinstead Town at the Staxson Stadium before being on the wrong end of the same score at Sheppey on Monday – Maxwell admitted similarities between both games, saying, “We dominated both games, on Saturday we had to be patient to break Grinstead down it’s as simple as that. The referee made an error, and they scored, and we had to come back and came back emphatically at the end to score a dramatic winner.”
“And then I thought we were really, really good Monday first half and had Sheppey pinned down for a long period of the first half and their first attempt on target was a goal which was so disappointing after we had one off the line, another really good chance and other half chances.
“Territory, control and possession was certainly with us… we did get back in the game and had opportunities, so I have to say that it is a game of missed chances for us at the moment, one game we got three points, one we didn’t. I was honestly not too disappointed in the way that we played, the style and how we performed, I wasn’t too disappointed at all, it’s just frustrating that we didn’t convert the chances when we were on top.”
“This team is still learning, we have had a chat at training about not getting too caught up in things. We are developing as a team; we have analysed last weekend to the back teeth and ultimately it came down to us switching off and not punishing when we needed to.
“There have been lots and lots of positives and I do like what I see, there is so much more to come from this team, we need to put the ball in the net when we are on top, that is a definite and we must be fully focused on keeping a clean sheet.”