Dover Athletic boss Jake Leberl reacts to hard-fought 1-0 National League South success against Farnham Town

Manager Jake Leberl hailed Dover’s display as “a really strong team performance” after they battled to a hard-fought win over in-form Farnham Town on Saturday.

Winger Sak Hassan opened his account for Whites with the game’s only goal in the first half as it ended 1-0 at Crabble.

It was just Farnham’s second defeat in their past 10 matches, leaving the ninth-placed outfit just a point ahead of Leberl’s side, who are 11th in the league.

“This was always going to be a tough one,” said Leberl. “They’re in great form.

“We had to adjust slightly to try and stop them. I thought all the boys went about their jobs as we had asked, and I thought it was a really strong team performance.

“It was nice to see a few boys that haven’t got [many] minutes get some opportunities.”

Farnham, who headed into the contest after scoring 10 goals in two fixtures, were kept at bay by Dover’s defence that was led by goalkeeper and captain Mitch Walker once more.

Leberl said: “It was a brilliant performance against a really strong Farnham side, who pushed us all the way. Obviously, they had scored 10 in their last two so they’re a massive threat.

“To keep a clean sheet and get a 1-0 win, we’re thoroughly delighted.”

Free-flowing Farnham again caused issues, particularly in the second period, but also played themselves into trouble on Whites’ grass surface at times.

“We wanted to frustrate them,” Leberl revealed. “They’re a free-flowing side, they’re a counter-attacking side, and play a certain way which is really difficult to deal with.

“I thought we started the game really well and probably were a little bit unfortunate that we didn’t get ahead early on.

“Then, they had a good spell for 20 minutes in the first half where we struggled. But what we