This was all an too familiar story of almost, but not quite, as it seems losing by a solitary goal to top of the table sides is Sittingbourne’s fate at the moment.

In this game the Brickies bossed the second half and even hit a post right on full time, but it just wasn’t quite good enough.

Compared to the Guernsey starting line-up Chris Barnard swapped places with Ainsley Everett who was on the bench and Ben Fitchett took Jason Fregene’s place in the defence, Fregene having sustained a bad injury to his knee that looks likely to keep him side-lined for some time. 

The first half was an even affair and it took one moment of brilliance in the 8^th minute by Tariq Ossai, who was seemingly being shut down by two Sittingbourne defenders before he wriggled free and struck a brilliant shot past Jordan Perrin in the Sittingbourne goal.

That was essentially Ashford’s only real effort on goal, although early in the second half a header from a corner in a good position went straight to Perrin. Sittingbourne on the other hand had plenty of chances to score, especially through Cory Walters-Wright who twice had good heading opportunities in the second half but sent both wide.

A chance fell to Johan Caney-Bryan in the 66^th minute when Roman Campbell and Barnard combined well to set up the Brickies striker, but the ball was fired over the bar.

Six minutes later Tom Fagg made a curvy run and found Cameron Brodie and he too fired over the bar. Tom Fagg was showing the way and on 74 minutes he again set up Caney-Bryan, this time the shot bounced off a defender for a corner. Fagg himself got into the act just after but his shot was well saved by United’s keeper Sam Mott.

Right on full time it looked like the Brickies had scored an equaliser when Chris Webber shot from the left had Mott scrambling however the ball went over the keeper’s head and glanced off a post and the game was lost.

It doesn’t get any easier as Sittingbourne now have the long trip to 3^rd place Whitehawk on Saturday.