An in-depth look at Hawks and their rivals in the National League South play-offs (providing they can all afford to compete ...)

If they can, they will be aiming for a third promotion in four seasons and an instant return to the top tier of non-league football.

Along with Weymouth, Bath City, Slough, Dartford and Dorking Wanderers, Hawks will be invited to compete in the play-offs.

Providing all the clubs take part - it is not mandatory to do so, but a minimum of four clubs is required - then Hawks will enter at the semi-final stage after finishing league runners-up.

They will host the winners of the Slough (5th) v Dartford (6th) game, while Weymouth (3rd) will host the winner of Bath (4th) v Dorking (7th).

The final will be held at the ground of the club that finished highest in the regular season.

Of the six clubs who could take part in the play-offs, all have played in the top tier of English non-league before apart from Dorking.

The Surrey club were only formed in 1999, starting off in the Crawley & District League.

They have since won a startling 11 promotions, and are aiming to go up for the second year running after winning the Isthmian Premier Division title in 2018/19.

Dartford are aiming to return to the National League for the first time since 2015, Bath for the first time since 2012 and Weymouth for the first time since 2009.

Presuming they can afford to take part in the play-offs, the Dorset club are also aiming for a second successive promotion.

A nine-year stint in the Southern League was ended when they won the Southern Premier League South title in 2018/19.

Slough last played in the top flight in 1996/97, finishing eighth. But they were then demoted to the Isthmian League for failing to bring their ground up to the required standard.

Here, The News takes a closer look at the six teams who, finance notwithstanding, will be taking part in the South play-ofs.

Form

Obviously, no-one has any form - no games have been played since March 14.

But Dorking were the ones totally out of form when the season was halted, having lost five games in a row.

The last was a 2-1 home loss to Hawks on March 14, with Dean Beckwith grabbing a last-minute winner.

Wanderers also lost to high-fliers Wealdstone and Slough in that five-game spell.

They went down 3-1 at Wealdstone and crashed 5-3 at home to the Rebels dispute the visitors having a man sent off on 54 minutes with the score 2-2.

In all, Dorking only won two of their 12 league matches in 2020.

Hawks were one of four clubs at the top of the form table, based on their last six games, when the pandemic struck.

All four clubs - Dartford, Bath and Chippenham were the others - had won four, drew one and lost one.

Hawks were the only club to have won their last four games.

Home record

Wealdstone ended the season with a stunning record of 15 wins from their 17 home games.

The only games they didn’t win were a 4-1 home thrashing by Hawks at the end of September and a 1-0 defeat to Chelmsford on February 25.

Weymouth enjoyed the second best home record, with 11 wins and 37 points from their 18 games.

They only suffered three losses - one of which was to Hawks on New Year’s Day when Simon Walton scored the only goal.

Weymouth are scheduled to be home in the play-off semi-final to Bath or Dorking.

Bath ended 2019/20 with the third best home record, with 10 wins and 35 points from 17 games at Twerton Park.

Hawks were down in eighth place, with eight wins and 28 points from 17 Westleigh Park outings.

No other club in the play-offs lost more home games than their five - though Dorking also lost the same.

That’s not necessarily a stat Hawks need to focus on, bearing in mind they will enjoy home advantage throughout the play-offs as a result of finishing second!

Hawks, though, were enjoying better home form as the campaign progressed.

They beat Weymouth and Slough in February and their last home game in early March saw a 2-0 success against Hampton & Richmond, who finished just outside the play-offs.

Away record

Dorking had the worst record of any of the six play-off teams in 2019/20 on opposition territory.

They won five, drew four and lost eight - only the 10th best record in the South table.

Wanderers also conceded 34 goals, more than any of their play-off rivals.

Their heaviest loss was a 6-0 caning at Westleigh Park last August.

Unsurprisingly, bearing in mind they didn’t lose a game, Hawks enjoyed the best away record in the division.

With 11 wins and six draws, they picked up 39 points - 11 more than the next best travellers, Slough Town.

Hawks’ record is phenomenal, but even more amazing when you consider how often they were trailing.

They were losing 1-0 in eight of those 17 games, while in their very first away game of 2019/20 they trailed 3-1 at Hampton & Richmond before hitting back to win 4-3.

Attack

Hawks were the second top scorers in the division with 64 goals - five fewer than Wealdstone.

But Weymouth (60), Dartford (60) and Dorking (58) were not far behind.

Hawks only failed to score in five of their 34 games - only Hampton & Richmond (four) failed to score in fewer matches.

Braintree failed to score in 14 games - though they managed six in two matches against Hawks! - while Welling registered 13 blanks.

Defence

Four of the play-off teams had very similar defensive records.

Weymouth only conceded 35 goals, with Hawks and Bath letting in 37 and Slough 38.

Dartford shipped 46 and Dorking 56.

The latter finished seventh despite only three clubs - mid-table Oxford City and bottom two Braintree and Hungerford - conceding more.

Dorking, though, did keep as many clean sheets (11) as Hawks, even though they let in 19 more goals.

Bath kept the most clean sheets in the division (15) followed by champions Wealdstone (12).

Ross Worner was an ever present in the Hawks goal, and he only conceded more than two goals in four league games.

They were in the win at Hampton (4-3), the draw at Braintree (3-3) and in home losses to Braintree (3-1) and Wealdstone (4-2).

Strikers

Hawks’ Jonah Ayunga ended 2019/20 as the joint top scorer in the South division.

His 17-goal haul was matched by St Albans City striker Joe Iaciofano.

Dartford have two players with 16 goals to their name.

Darren McQueen is well known to Hawks boss Paul Doswell, for McQueen was part of the Sutton squad in 2018/19 prior to joining the Darts on loan in the February. The move was made permanent last summer.

Elliott Romain started this season at Eastbourne Borough, but moved to Dartford at the end of October after being released by the Sussex club for financial reasons. He had only joined Borough in May 2019 from Maidstone.

Dorking’s top scorer was 14-goal Jason Prior, a striker well known to Hawks fans, while Tom Smith had struck 13 times for Bath City.

Midfielder Smith joined the Romans permanently last summer after being released by Cheltenham. He had previously spent four loan spells at Bath during his time with Swindon and Cheltenham.

Dan Roberts was Slough’s leading marksman with 12 goals, while veteran Danny Kedwell was Hawks’ second top scorer with 11.

Abdulai Baggie was Weymouth’s top marksman with 10 league goals, but he won’t be taking part in the play-offs after turning down a new contract.

The 27-year-old, who has played in the EFL for Tranmere, Rotherham and Port Vale, is keen to return to full-time football.

He had joined the Terras in 2017, after helping Poole Town win the Southern Premier League South Division and finish in the Conference South play-off zone two seasons running.

Hawks will also be without a striker in the play-offs after Alfie Rutherford moved to Dorking earlier this month.

The former Moneyfields forward netted 13 times for Hawks in 2019/20, but only six of those goals were in league action.

Unless the National League change the rules, Rutherford will not be eligible to play for Dorking in the play-offs, having been signed after the transfer deadline.

Hawks did rely a lot on Ayunga, Kedwell and Rutherford, who between them scored 34 of the club’s 64 league goals.

After those three, the next highest scorers were Wes Fogden, Josh Taylor and Roarie Deacon all with for goals.

And Deacon only played one game since end of September due to injury.

Penalties

Hawks fans will be hoping none of their club’s play-off fixtures go to penalties based on the club’s form from 12 yards out this season.

Four players missed a penalty - Danny Kedwell (who missed two), Roarie Deacon, Simon Walton and Anthony Straker.

Against that, Hawks keeper Ross Worner has a good record in saving spot-kicks.

He kept one out in Hawks’ 3-1 win at St Albans and saved a late Jake McCarthy effort to preserve the 1-0 lead at Weymouth on New Year’s Day.

Worner also saved a penalty in the home game against the Terras, though the rebound was netted.

Back in 2015, Worner saved two Gosport penalties in one game - from Justin Bennett and Jamie White - to give Sutton a 1-0 Conference South victory.

He went on to be voted the non-league Goalkeeper of the Season for his role in helping Sutton - managed by Paul Doswell - the divisional title.

Finishing place

It is something of a cliche to say the team who finishes highest in the regular season rarely makes it through the play-offs.

But Hawks can take some comfort from the fact that in the last 10 seasons the team finishing runners-up has gone on to win the play-offs five times.

Though that is only a 50 per cent success rate, it is still higher than any of the other positions.

Woking (2019), Ebbsfleet (2017), Boreham Wood (2015), Salisbury (2013), Dartford (2012) and Bath (2010) were the five runners-up to subsequently go up.

In 2018, though, Braintree went up after sneaking into the play-offs in sixth place.

They won all three matches away from home, including a semi-final victory at a Dartford side who had only lost the South title to Hawks on goal difference.

In 2014, Dover finished fifth and went on to win promotion. In the semi-final they caned Paul Doswell’s Sutton, who had finished runners-up, 4-1 on aggregate.