Haywards Heath Town boss hails winning start – with a proviso

That’s manager Naim Rouane’s view as Haywards Heath begin the 2024-25 season with five straight victories, four in the league and one in the FA Cup.

They were top of the Southern Combination League’s premier division after three games at the start of a season when many are tipping them for the title or promotion.

On Tuesday night, they were displaced at the top by Petersfield Town on goal difference despite another win, with Alex Plummer’s goal securing a 1-0 home win over Crowborough.

Rouane is not getting involved in any talk about where Heath might finish but says he is delighted with what he has seen from his players in their early displays.

The win that left them top came at Pagham on Saturday, when two goals from Lewis Finney and one from Liam Benson earned a 3-0 win, their third straight clean sheet in the league.

Now they’re set to return to FA Cup action – they host Isthmian south east side Deal Town in Saturday’s preliminary round.

Rouane, speaking before Tuesday night’s game, said: “We can’t complain at the start we’ve had and the return of points. But nothing’s won in August and at the moment we can only try to go on improving game by game and resetting for each fixture.

"It felt like a fairly quick turnaound in the summer. We had about a five-week pre-season but didn’t have the full squad together for a lot of that time.

"But what we did in pre-season, we did well. I could see the team was in a good place and I envisaged us starting well.”

Rouane said clean sheets in each of the first three league matches was pleasing and stressed they’d need to mix solid defence with energetic attacking play throughout the long season if they were to be successful.

He praised the influence Brad Bant was having after joining the management and the impression the new signings were making.

Rouane expects a tough Cup test from Deal: “They’ve been promoted to step four and have started well.”