Lovett hails Burgess Hill Town’s hat-trick hero – and welcomes Mansell’s new role

The comfortable win set up Lovett and Gary Mansell’s Hillians to visit Sittingbourne at Good Friday, the first part of an Easter Weekend double header – knowing they could meet them again in the play-offs.

Sittingbourne and Hill will almost certainly finish second and third to set up separate home semi-finals.

Lovett said of the win over Deal: “The football we played was a lot better.

"Everything we tried to do and practiced in training worked and the boys enjoyed themselves – we put some good combinations together and we scored good goals.

“Brannon was fantastic, he worked so hard out there. He and Martyn Box have a great relationship and they rotate really well together.

"Brannon finishes really well and he’s been brilliant all season. He’s been professional all season. He leads by example on the pitch and he deservedly got the matchball on Saturday.”

Lovett said of tomorrow’s trip: “It might be a bit like a chess match, we still need to secure our third-place finish and we want to test ourselves against one of the strongest sides in the league and Sittingbourne are one of the strongest sides, so it’ll be a good game and a tactical game.

"I think it’ll be a game of both sides snuffing each other out. We’ll be trying to get a win against them, there’s a chance we play them again so we’re not going to show all of our cards to each other.”

Hill then host Three Bridges on Monday.

Off the pitch, co-manager Mansell has been appointed Hill’s director of football.

“Gary is great, for what he does with the first team and the Russell Martin Foundation as well," Lovett said.

"He’s very good at organising and setting up the youth and instructing them to be as strong as they can. We want to create a conveyer belt of players coming through the youth groups to the U18s. Gary is the perfect person in place to make sure the club is heading in the right direction.”