Faversham joint-manager Phil Miles admits a failure to match Sittingbourne’s hunger served as his side’s undoing in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat.

A first-half display lacking the required effort and intensity saw Town head into the interval trailing 2-0 following goals from Timileyin Toluwanile and Lewis Chambers.

The visitors teased a comeback with a spirited response after the break but were ultimately made to pay their slow start to the game.

“First half we were very poor, didn’t compete, weren’t strong enough, didn’t work hard enough, they did,” Miles admitted.

“We did make two changes, I’m not going to make excuses but we’ve been doing so well with that first eleven so missing two on the day was difficult. The performance from the players that played in the first half was nowhere near good enough.

“The first goal was soft, we didn’t clear our lines. Their second goal was a shot from outside the box, we expect Will (Godmon) to do better there, he expects better of himself and held his hand up at half-time.

“It was just the way the first half went for us, we couldn’t get the wide boys involved.”

In the second half the injured Daniel Carrington was forced to make way for Luke Griffiths and soon after Matt Bourne pulled a goal back for Faversham.

Their search for a leveller, however, was met by setback when Griffiths found himself the subject of a penalty shout, only for the referee to wave away Faversham claims.

Miles added: “Second half we came out brilliantly, made a good start and then we got the goal.

“Luke Griffiths had a chance and then he got clipped in the box, we all thought it was a penalty. I haven’t said much about referees since coming to the club, but I just felt the referee was poor.

“If he’d have given the penalty, we’d have scored and I believe we would have gone on to get something from the game.

“From the penalty shout to them scoring was probably no more than five minutes. It killed us. The game just fizzled out after their third goal.”

The hosts were worth well their win on the day on the basis of their overall approach towards the contest, Miles admitted.

He said: “The boys have been brilliant, but we just felt we didn’t have the desire they had.

“They worked harder and were stronger. Their desire meant they won the game, and deservedly so.

“If we could have matched them for effort and desire we felt our ability would come through.

In something of a deviation to the trend since Miles’ arrival, Faversham’s performance levels were a far cry from those required from a team striving to evade a relegation battle.

“We have started games really well, this is probably only the second game where I felt we didn’t play very well.

“Most of the games we’ve been involved in we’ve played really well. I did say to the lads afterwards that we can play poorly and still win games.

“We were punished by two soft goals. You cannot give any team in this league a two-goal lead.”

The result leaves Faversham on 29 points in 15th and just one ahead of 16th-placed Three Bridges following their 1-1 draw with Ramsgate.

Greenwich, in 19th, fuelled an intriguing storyline at the bottom of the Bostik South East table with a 2-0 win over East Grinstead to close the gap on Faversham to just five points.

“Fair play to Greenwich, they won again and they’ve done really well,” added Miles. “It’s going to be exciting down there to see who the last team to drop down is.

“We’ve got two home games coming up and we’ve been fairly strong at home. Jamie Maxted is back in training, we’re still waiting on Ben Chapman as he’s had concussion.”