Faversham Town manager Sammy Moore stands by pre-season friendlies against higher-division opposition despite winless start

Boss Sammy Moore is standing by Faversham’s pre-season schedule solely against higher-division opposition.

The Lilywhites have played three warm-up games so far ahead of their Southern Counties East Premier Division promotion bid, losing two and drawing one.

They started with a goalless draw at last season’s Isthmian South East play-off Finalists Hythe last Tuesday, went down to ambitious Isthmian South East opposition Ramsgate 2-0 on Saturday and suffered a 3-2 loss at Burgess Hill in midweek.

But Moore insists he and Town’s management team have learnt a lot from those three games.

He said: “Pre-season has been good.

“We’ve had some really tough tests and, like I said to our boys after Tuesday’s game, we could have put an easy pre-season schedule together and played Step 6 sides. We haven’t.

“We’ve chosen a tough one because I feel that by getting beaten and conceding goals that’ll help us come up with more solutions. They’ve all been different in their own rights.

“The Hythe game, we had a lot of the ball and dominated possession - without creating too much - but it was more about getting minutes into legs. Then, we went to Ramsgate. Fair play to Ramsgate, they have recruited really well.

“I think they had about five or six players that have played in National League South. It was a great test.

“The majority of the time, we were without the ball, so we had to work really hard and that got our fitness levels up.

“We had a few chances ourselves, I felt we weren’t clinical enough in front of goal, but Ramsgate caused us a lot of problems. We’ve learnt a lot from that as a management group and as a whole group as well.

“Then, we went to Burgess Hill and absolutely dominated. They had two 11s, we had a few boys away, but I