Dartford player-manager Ben Greenhalgh seeing set-piece work pay dividends as his side put their 100 per cent record on the line against Welling United

Ben Greenhalgh has seen one of his big pre-season messages hit home during Dartford’s perfect start to the Isthmian Premier campaign.

New player-boss Greenhalgh stressed the importance of set-pieces - both attacking and defending - and the work Darts have put in on the training ground is paying off.

Skipper Ben Swift scored from an 85th-minute corner in a 2-1 victory at Maldon & Tiptree last weekend as Dartford made it three wins out of three.

And they will be looking to cause further problems when they host local rivals Welling United at Princes Park on Saturday (3pm).

“We’ve been very strong at set-pieces,” said Greenhalgh, whose side led at Maldon through Max Fiddes before being pegged back on the half-hour.

“That was massive for us. We wanted to be one of the best teams at set-pieces, at both ends of the pitch, and so far we haven’t let in a set-piece and we’ve scored from five.

“When you look at our defence of Ben Swift, Joe Tennent, George Whitefield and Eman Oke, from the first game they’ve bought into both elements.

“We had Joe get on the scoresheet at Three Bridges, we had Swifty get on the scoresheet against Maldon and George has come very close to scoring a couple of goals at Maldon.

“There’s a lot of positives in terms of that and that shows the spirit of what our team is and where we’re at.

“We understand there’s levels we’ve got and there’s levels we need to hit but we’re not going to come away from the strengths we’re currently producing.”

After a comeback win from 2-0 at Three Bridges and victories over Brentwood and Maldon & Tiptree, Dartford face another stern test with the visit of Welling.

The Wings have won two of their opening three games and, like Dartford, have promotion ambitions.

Greenhalgh