Sittingbourne travel to Horley Town this weekend looking to kick start their season as after a flying start, the Brickies have lost four of their last six including contrasting home defeats in the past seven days with manager Reece Prestedge keen to get back to winning ways.

Tuesday night for a case in point against leaders Hastings United, as the Brickies went a goal down and a man down early on, right-back Jaiden Chang injured a shoulder which saw him carried off on a stretcher. J

oe Boachie levelled before the break but on the stroke of half-time central defender Dexter Peter went down with a hamstring injury.

When D’sean Theobalds also hobbled off after an hour just as Hastings restored their lead, the home side had a midfielder in central defence and a right winger at left back. 

Yet somehow the Brickies clawed their way back again and Boachie’s towering header in stoppage time seemed to have grabbed a point in the most bizarre of circumstances but Hastings won the game moments later to leave the Brickies – players, management and supporters alike – shattered. 

By the time we caught up with boss Reece Prestedge at the end of the week, we asked him with hindsight and after thought just how he now saw the two defeats!

Contemplating, Prestedge told us, “Tuesday… Disappointment may be the wrong word to use as frustration is probably the better one after what happened!”, he said.

“Especially when you consider the eleven that actually finished the game had many playing so far out of position. There was disappointment with the goal right at the end as we really have to see it out as we had enough experience on the pitch to do it, but I thought as a performance we were very good and it definitely didn’t match the result!” 

“I think the result against Peacehaven was very much a very under par performance as a collective. It’s the first time that you can question the performance – the Cup defeats were a little bit different as we were ahead in those games and capitulated and allowed teams back in, but on Saturday I didn’t think we deserved anything from the game as we didn’t do enough.” 

“It just shows again how tight this League is this season where there are no unbeaten teams left after just half a dozen games and in the past seasons that hasn’t been the case.”

“There are probably at least nine or ten teams who all want to be in the Play Offs and others will fight for it. In previous years and no disrespect, it wasn’t as many as that – I think teams are really stepping up now and as I said there is not one team still unbeaten!” 

Prestedge will be looking for a quieter afternoon at the weekend when his side travel to the Surrey/Sussex border to face newly promoted Horley Town whose recent form just sums up the rest of the League as they recently beat Hastings themselves by 3-2 but finished up with nine men, whilst last weekend they lost seven nil at Eastbourne Town. 

Prestedge told us, “We’ll be looking at the footage – they got that great result against Hastings and so we have to go there with confidence off the back of our performance on Tuesday, if not the result and that’s all we can do.”

“We just have to make sure that we give the same work rate and effort that we did on Tuesday. It is always nice to go to places that you haven’t been to before and we will travel with the belief that we can win the game as we have to have a reaction to the last two results.”