What Maidstone United manager Hakan Hayrettin said to Jack Barham after the striker's third hat-trick this season

Hakan Hayrettin let Jack Barham take the applause of the Maidstone crowd after his latest hat-trick, then joked: You were average.

Hayrettin substituted Barham immediately after the striker completed his third treble of the season in the Stones’ thumping 4-0 victory over Havant.

He received a well-deserved ovation as he made way for Hady Ghandour but there was no immediate “well played, son” from Hayrettin.

“I said to him as he came off, ‘I thought you were average,’ but that’s obviously not true,” said the Stones boss, after his side maintained their four-point lead over Dorking at the top of National South.

“It’s just my way of motivating him and getting him to do a bit better.

“I thought he was outstanding, his movement today was good, the goals he took were good.

“The third one is typical Jack Barham, Jack in the box, the other two he’s got on to things, hasn’t he?

“When you’ve got someone like him in your team who’s going to run and chase and hassle, it spreads and that’s what we want, we want it to spread around the team so everybody notices the hard work he’s doing and others are doing.

“Last week he didn’t do it (3-2 win v St Albans) and I dragged him off because I thought it was the right to do and if I hadn’t done that, I don’t think we’d have won.

“This week, we saw a new and improved Jack Barham and he was amazing, and so was everybody.”

Barham scored twice inside eight minutes against play-off hopefuls Havant, whose boss Paul Doswell changed the system that had seen them go seven games unbeaten.

Joan Luque made it three with a penalty before half-time and Barham completed his hat-trick in the 89th minute, with his 15th goal of the season.

Hayrettin had been wary of the Hawks’ threat but United blew them