Sittingbourne welcomes AFC Whyteleafe to the Staxson Stadium, Woodstock on Saturday as fourth plays third in the Isthmian South East.

With the same number of games played the Brickies are six points behind their opponents with a home play-off berth the ultimate prize for the side finishing third in the table and boss Reece Prestedge, talking to KSN this week, has his sights well and truly set on Whyteleafe’s second successive Saturday visit to Swale.

He told is, “As we’re at the stage of the season where we are, every game we play now is a big game for us and literally takes each one as the biggest to be fair!”

The visitors will arrive confidently and in form after thumping Sheppey United six-nil last weekend. “At this stage of the season managers will always tell you that it’s about getting over the line and keeping that winning mentality and momentum as these next games are going to be the toughest that we will have all season. Last weekend is last weekend but we know they’ll be tough!”

“Last Saturday Herne Bay was a close game for us too (Sittingbourne winning 2-0) with not much in it to be fair – first half that had a chance that they probably should have scored and gone a goal up, but I do feel after that that we didn’t really see many chances in the game and after the break I thought that we controlled the game a lot better than we did in the first half.”

Rex Porter came into the team in goal against Herne Bay after Jamie Grosshart was ruled out. “Young Rex deserved credit coming late in the week,” Prestedge continued, “as he did to replace Jamie, who got a kick in the head at Erith Town. Jamie will be out for a while with concussion and I spoke to Bromley and they were happy to let Rex come to help and I thought he did really well to be fair – first game, first time meeting the boys and as a young lad he looked confident which keepers need as a keeper I think that’s what you need as the last line of defence – if your keeper is confident, your back four is as well – for a young las to have that sort of mentality is really good.”

“We can’t look too far ahead at the moment, and it will be another tough game. Whyteleafe are six unbeaten which we all hope for at this time of year, and we have to respect them. But we are at home here at Woodstock and so will take it to them – they play expansive football which they do really well with, scoring a lot of goals, and we have to make sure that we set out to do what we have to do!”