Hawks player coach Jamie Collins aiming for a National League South repeat of Sutton’s form six years ago in bid to keep promotion dream alive

Back in 2015/16, Collins was part of Doswell’s Sutton United squad that won what is now the National League South.

That season the south London club won 12 and drew two of their final 14 games to win the title by six points from Ebbsfleet.

Now with the pair reunited at Hawks - along with keeper Ross Worner and Tommy Wright, who were also in that Sutton squad - a similar run is needed to catapult the club into the NLS top seven.

Hawks’ dire run of nine league games without a win was ended at the weekend with a 4-2 Westleigh Park victory over Ebbsfleet.

It left them seven points adrift of the top seven with 14 games to go.

Back in January, Doswell reckoned Hawks needed 12 wins from their last 20 games to make the play-offs.

The target now is 11 wins from 14 matches - a huge task but one which player coach Collins believes is still achievable given the talent in the squad.

‘Havant are a big club in this league and we know we have under-achieved,’ he said after beating Ebbsfleet.

‘We just need to kick on from here. This is a massive win for us.

‘We’ve got 14 cup finals left and we’re going to probably need to win eight or nine of them and see where that takes us.

‘When I was at Sutton we went on a long unbeaten run when we won the Conference South.

‘Hopefully we’ve got a little bit of momentum now.

‘We’ll need to go on a hell of a run but we’ve got the players in the squad.’

Hawks will certainly need to piece together the sort of run leaders Dorking are enjoying.

Marc White’s men have won 12 of their last 13 league games - losing only to Tonbridge.

Promotion rivals Maidstone and Dartford have both won their last five games, meanwhile.

Hawks are seven points adrift of seventh-placed Eastbourne, with a game in hand.

‘It’s been a long time coming,’ Collins said of the Ebbsfleet success.

‘We’ve been through a bad run but we’ve been working really hard in the meantime, we’ve stuck together, and we fully deserve this.

‘Six weeks I think it’s been without a win, but especially the last five or six games the fans can see we’ve been working our hardest and that’s the little bit of luck we’ve needed today.

‘You never want to use luck in football, but today the ref gave a free-kick and the lino overruled him and we had a penalty. A few weeks ago we probably would have got a free-kick.

‘Look at the workrate today, we were all in it together.’

Collins thanked the Westleigh Park faithful for their backing throughout an alarming period of results.

Though a quick look through social media in recent weeks will find some fans calling for Doswell to go, Collins said the support on matchdays has been appreciated.

‘From the players, Bairdy, the gaffer, thank you to the fans for sticking with us,’ he stated.

‘They deserve that one (Ebbsfleet win). Hopefully we can put a few more performances like that in.

‘Winning gives everyone a boost. The fans have been great with us. At Concord the other day they could have given us a bit of stick but they told us to keep our heads up, keep going.

‘We’ve got good players at this football club, the gaffer and Bairdy have signed great players, and today it showed.’

Next up for Hawks, hopefully resurgent, is a trip to Slough Town next weekend followed by a home game against Cheltenham on March 5.