Sam Corne has a love-hate relationship with Maidstone’s title challenge.

Corne scored twice in an outstanding performance as United won 4-0 at Hemel Hempstead last weekend.

They require a maximum of six points from their final three games to beat Dorking to the National South championship.

It’s a great position to be in but Corne, who’s never won a league title, is wary of getting ahead of himself.

“I love the position we’re in but I hate it as well,” said the eight-goal midfielder, speaking after the Hemel game.

“I see the boys celebrating at the end but I don’t want to tempt fate just yet.

“Everyone’s switched on, everyone knows what’s at stake.

“We’ve just got to stay on our A-game and, fingers crossed, in two games’ time or maybe earlier, we get the trophy.

“Dorking are pushing hard, we knew that would be the case, because they’re a good side.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got a little bit ahead of them and as long as we worry about ourselves, we should be fine.

“I’ve been in play-offs before but to actually win something in my adult career would be special.

“It’s that close but I don’t want to tempt fate.

“If we get there we’ll enjoy it but, for now, we have to stay professional and take it a game at a time.

“Dartford was a big one to tick off but you’ve got to follow it up.

“There’s no point winning there and then losing to Hemel, so it was an important one for us.

“We’re a step closer but we’re not there yet.”

Corne opened the scoring and added the third at Hemel as Maidstone chalked up a seventh consecutive victory, while Jack Barham and Jerome Binnom-Williams also struck.

With leading scorer Joan Luque out injured, Corne felt added responsibility to deliver.

“From start to finish I thought we were excellent, and to score twice is always nice,” said Corne.

“I hadn’t scored for a little while and, with Luque out, more of us have got to step up in in terms of chipping in with goals.

“It’s not really something we’ve spoken about but Luque is someone who’s scored plenty of goals, and vital goals, so we’ve got to find them in certain areas of the pitch.

“As you can see, the goals have come from a defender, a midfielder and a striker, and that’s all you can ask for.”

Maidstone host Chelmsford at the Gallagher tomorrow (3pm), a pay-on-the-day fixture.

The Stones have sold out their allocation of just over 1,000 tickets for the Bank Holiday Monday match at Welling.

The final game of the season, at home to Hampton on Saturday week, is already a sell-out.