Maidstone United manager Craig Fagan’s reaction to 3-2 National League South victory at Dorking Wanderers

Manager Craig Fagan concentrated on the football as Maidstone finally recorded a league win over Dorking at the 12th attempt.

An outstanding performance was rewarded with a 3-2 away victory on Saturday as Fagan’s side moved up to fifth in the fledgling National League South table.

They came from a goal down to lead 3-1 through Tom Leahy, Ken Charles and Riley Court and saw out the closing minutes after conceding a late second.

With Stones assistant boss and former Dorking No.2 Rob Tuvey back at his old club, the stakes were always likely to be raised on the Meadowbank touchline.

But there was a game to win and Maidstone came out on top in the tactical battle to end a miserable run against Marc White’s men stretching back to their first meeting in 2019.

“There’s obviously one or two things that get said but that’s football, and I was just happy the way we performed,” said Fagan.

“I tried not to get involved but I think the performance deserved the win.

“We were organised, not in the sense that we were just sitting in and trying not to play.

“We were doing it for a reason, so we could counter-attack against their back three.

“That’s all we were trying to do, let them have the ball, they’ll lose it and then you’ve got Tom Leahy, Ken and Leone (Gravata) that can go and attack.

“If you get them three v three they’re going to cause problems, and you’ve got Riley behind them.

“I’m happy with the result and happy with the performance.

“The players are digging in for me, which is always a good sign.

“When it gets tough you can sometimes tell if the players are playing for the manager.

“It was mentioned today that if it does get tough, will they dig in? And I think we got the answer.”

Report: Dorking 2-3 Maidstone

Maidstone