Dover Athletic boss Jake Leberl on Luca Cocoracchio’s first goal this season and a much-needed 1-0 Isthmian Premier win against Dulwich Hamlet in front of a bumper crowd at Crabble

Manager Jake Leberl praised Luca Cocoracchio as he led play-off chasing Dover to an Isthmian Premier victory against Dulwich Hamlet on Saturday.

Cocoracchio netted in the 12th minute - his first goal this season - as Whites won 1-0 at Crabble to maintain fifth place in the table after back-to-back defeats.

Having started the campaign at centre-half, Brighton & Hove Albion Academy product Cocoracchio now finds himself in a midfield role.

“Luca is an absolutely tremendous professional,” said Leberl.

“I think he travels the furthest - he travels from a long way away - and he’s been a model professional since the first day he came in. He’s, obviously, very versatile.

“When Harrison Pont was away for Christmas, we first put him into that midfield role. It was one of the reasons we brought him in because he’s a little bit versatile so we knew he could do it.

“He’s an absolute credit to himself, a credit to the club and we’re really pleased to have him.

Report: Dover 1-0 Dulwich Hamlet

“He’s having a really solid season.”

Dover’s boss was also delighted with the displays of full-backs Fuad Sesay and Roman Charles-Cook while goalkeeper Jordan Gillmore kept his first clean sheet following a two-game ban this month.

Leberl said: “Both full-backs were tremendous. There were lots of really good individual performances.

“For the first time at Cray (in last weekend’s 2-1 loss), I did question the group where I think we lost virtually every individual battle, other than Roman. That’s three (good performances) in a row for him.

“All in all, I was really pleased with the win and with lots of the individual performances.”

The match was played in front of a crowd that the club announced as 3,021 on their second community day this term,