Boss Steve King rates Deal forward Rory Smith as one of the best players in the league - when he’s fit.

Smith played an influential role in last Saturday’s 4-1 Isthmian South East home victory against Eastbourne Town, scoring his second goal of the season while he was involved in another.

The former Herne Bay and Ramsgate player has had a stop-start past couple of campaigns due to injury but Smith is a major asset when he is available.

“Rory’s a quality footballer,” King said. “He’s always one of the players that’s at the centre of everything that you do well.

“Our challenge with Rory is keeping him fit. He probably hasn’t played 40 or 50 games in a season for a few years now.

“But when he’s fit, I don’t see many better players in the division and he showed how good he is on Saturday.”

But Smith was pipped to Deal sponsors’ man-of-the-match award by his cousin Tom Chapman against Eastbourne Town, the winger himself having had a three-week lay-off after last month’s 1-0 FA Trophy defeat to Ashford to get their second after Ashley Miller had broken the deadlock.

King admitted: “There’s players that are key to the style you want to play and Tom is certainly that.

“He’s probably the one player in the squad that we haven’t got a direct replacement for so, when he’s missing, that hits us a bit.

“We have got some quality forward players - Wes Hennessey, Aaron Millbank and Jamie Kennedy - but they’re fairly similar. So, when you don’t have a Rory, a Tom or an Ash, it’s difficult with our style of football.

“It was really pleasing to have all three of them on the pitch on Saturday and they all did well.

“All the forwards have been contributing and Aaron Millbank has been outstanding recently.”

And the Hoops’ productive afternoon in front of a 610-strong crowd was capped off at the death when teenage substitute Morgan Page scored.

King revealed: “He deserved it!

“Obviously, he’s started the two cup games (in the Kent Senior Cup and Velocity Cup) as a 17-year-old and done fantastically in both of those games. On Saturday, he came on for the last 15 minutes and popped up with a fourth.

“Everybody who knows me will know how hard I work and the club works to develop our own players.

“Owen Wilkinson, before he broke his arm, had a big impact in league games, Morgan has done really well and Zak Hammond has been fantastic. It bodes well for the future.

Deal man makes team-of-the-week

“We will be patient with those boys - we won’t pin lots of hopes on them - but they’re good enough to be involved and we’re at a club that wants to give young, local, players opportunities.”

Deal’s much-needed league win came after they thrashed a heavily-rotated Sittingbourne side 6-1 in the Kent Senior Cup last Tuesday.

King said: “Obviously, Sittingbourne rested a lot of players but they still brought down five players that were involved in the FA Cup (as the Brickies exited the competition at the weekend).

“We had two 17-year-olds starting the game and Alex Smith, who hasn’t played all season, so we weren’t exactly at full-strength.

“I was very pleased with the performance.

“Obviously, it’s a difficult one because Sittingbourne weren’t at full-strength - but they certainly weren’t a bunch of 17 and 18-year-olds.”

The Hoops’ goals came from Ife Oni, Aaron Millbank and Alex Smith before midfielder Billy Munday netted a second-half hat-trick.

King enthused: “Three goals from set-pieces - that was typical Billy Munday, wasn’t it? I thought our deliveries were spot-on.

“When teams make changes and go a little bit younger, set-pieces are often an area that you can exploit. I thought we did that very well.

“But in the first half, Ife Oni did well and Alex Smith, coming in for his first start, got his goal and did very well, too.”

The Hoops have a fixture-free weekend ahead of another home match against Sittingbourne - this time in the league - on Tuesday.

Asked if a weekend off was welcome, King replied: “Yes and no.

“We have got a few players that are still carrying knocks and niggles so it gives us an opportunity to rest them and, also, on Tuesday, we’re going to be playing one of the favourites for the league.

“I’m sure that they’ll bemoan it but they will play Saturday (in the FA Trophy) and will have had a tough game, and we’ll have had the day off. Hopefully, it makes us fresher to play one of the top boys in the league. If we didn’t have a midweek game and we had to wait two weeks, we would probably be frustrated.

“But the fact we know we can prepare for that game means we’re not disappointed at all.”