Hastings United 'won't rest on their laurels' after excellent upturn in form

That’s the view of U’s manager Gary Elphick, as last season’s Isthmian South East champions sit eighth in the table.

Hastings endured a difficult start to life in the Premier, failing to win their opening three matches.

But a superb 4-1 home victory over Brightlingsea Regent on August 24 sparked a marvellous U’s run that has seen them go five league games unbeaten.

Hastings have won their last three consecutive Premier games 1-0, and sit just four points off the play-offs.

Elphick said: “Whenever you make the jump up to another league, it’s the unknown and you don’t know how well you’re going to adapt to it. We had one of the hardest starts out of any team in the league.

"I always thought we were going to turn a corner, and I’ve been proved right so far.

“But we won’t rest on our laurels. Nothing’s been achieved yet. I feel that the league can be got at, so hopefully we can carry on churning out good performances and continue to climb up the league.”

The U’s haven’t kicked a ball in anger since their 1-0 home triumph over Carshalton on September 24.

Elphick revealed that Hastings had used the enforced break to get to work on the training ground, and improve aspects of their game.

He added: “I just try to look at the positive side of everything.

"We had good momentum and positive results, but we’re not scoring that many goals either. I just used the time to get on the training ground and work on things that we can do better and try to improve.

"I don’t think a week off will be too damaging to our performances, and hopefully the rest will have done some good as well.

"I’m looking forward to getting back to it. We’ve had some good time off but we’ve done some good work on the training ground.”

This Saturday sees Hastings visit the Metropolitan Police in the FA Trophy third qualifying round.

The Met sit 12th in the Southern League Premier South, with 13 points from eight games.

The U’s have no fresh injury concerns going into the weekend, although Lloyd Dawes will miss the game through suspension.