Stones bounce back

Maidstone showed an important quality in their big victory against Dulwich – the ability to get over disappointment.

The Stones could have been down on their luck after blowing leads in successive home defeats by Concord and Dorking.

But they bounced back with a 4-1 success at the Gallagher to move up to eighth in National League South, two points outside the play-offs. Maidstone opened up a twogoal lead but nerves might have crept in when Dulwich scored before half-time. However, there was nothing to worry about as United pulled clear after the break. Head of football John Still said: “I wouldn’t say relief, I’d say it’s belief.

“The one thing we always get from these players is maximum effort and I always say we might not be the best team – we aren’t the worst – but if we want to be a progressive team we’ve got to get over disappointment. “I say to the boys, they’ve come together this year, they’ve been thrown together a bit quick if I’m being honest.

“We’ve had some good games, we’ve had some disappointing games but when you have a bad time it’s about working hard and getting back to winning ways and they’ve done that today.

“We’re going to have some other disappointing moments because we’re trying to build a team.

“We haven’t got to play great to win football matches but you can’t make mistakes and win football matches, and we’ve made some mistakes.” Dulwich started well but keeper Chris Lewington kept them out with some fine saves, and Maidstone won with goals from Ibby Akanbi, Ross Marshall, Gavin Hoyte and Iffy Allen.

Still said: “We’ve had a couple of disappointing games here. We’ve been scoring goals but we’ve been too easy to score against. “We’ve done some work this week and although I thought in the first half our keeper’s done well, the longer the game went on the more control we got.

“I think the hardest games to win are local games anyway, no matter where you are. “It’s a local game so we’re delighted to win. We’ve had some good performances which was important.”