Dartford manager Alan Dowson issues challenge before National League South meeting with Braintree

Alan Dowson has set Dartford a challenge as they return to National League South action.

Darts were 4-3 winners at Worthing in their last league outing a week ago before losing to Maidstone in the FA Trophy on Saturday.

Dowson’s side host Braintree at Princes Park tonight looking to string together some form to get into those play-off places.

They’re not far off - three points back in 12th place - with Darts among a number of sides searching for consistency.

Boss Dowson said: “The way I look at it, we won our last league game so we’ve got to win the next two.

“Can we do it? Of course we can. It’s up to us.

“I was disappointed with Saturday but the good thing about football is you always have a game round the corner and we’ve got to go and win on Tuesday night, simple as that.”

He added: “If we’re going to do anything in the league we’ve got to start finding consistency.

“At the minute it’s win one, lose one; win two, maybe lose one, draw one. We’ve got to have something like we did last season, have some consistency where we’ll win a game 1-0.

“When has that happened? Plenty of times last season, so it’s one of them where we’ve got to get our act together.”

A clean sheet would be a bonus, with Dartford’s defending causing Dowson headaches this season.

He said: “We had Connor Essam and Tom Bonner last year, two bloody good centre-halves, probably the best in the league.

“We haven’t got that this year so we’ve got to work out a different way of keeping clean sheets.

“We’ve certainly missed them this year. It’s up to Moussa (Diarra) and Joash (Nembhard), or whoever plays in there to do better.”