Sittingbourne manager Reece Prestedge knows his players have what it takes to secure Isthmian South East play-off place in final two matches

Sittingbourne manager Reece Prestedge is backing his players to rise to the play-off challenge.

The Brickies have Faversham on their tails in the race for a top-five finish after losing 3-1 at Ashford last weekend.

They remain in the final play-off spot with two games left but a six-point advantage over their Swale rivals has been cut to one in the past fortnight.

Sittingbourne visit a Hassocks side fighting for survival this Saturday (3pm) before ending the campaign at home to relegated VCD.

Prestedge feels his team should already be secure in the play-offs but knows they have what it takes to get the job done.

“It’s still in our hands, isn’t it?” said Prestedge.

“It’s just annoying that we’ve not got over the line yet.

“You can see how competitive the league is with the results that are happening all over, not just ours.

“We’ve got Hassocks next and they’ve just beaten AFC Croydon, who are second.

“We’ve just got to find ways to win games of football.

“We haven’t had terrible results but we’ve come off two losses out of four and we’re still in the top five.

“If you look at like that, we could have had it wrapped up already but you’ve got to give credit to other teams because everyone’s still in there fighting.

“Five weeks ago we were pushing to go second, and now we’re only a point inside the play-offs but we’re still in the best position.

“When we came in we were 12th and I think everyone was looking at it and saying it was a very hard test but we climbed into the play-offs and we got there in good time.

“We had that fantastic run at the start, which any team would have bitten your hand off for, and it shows how well we did the fact we’re still in there.

“We’ve got to make sure we do what we can to get over the line