Hawks striker Jonah Ayunga on brink of a move to League Two club

The 23-year-old Hawks striker is believed to be on the verge of joining League One outfit Bristol Rovers for an undisclosed fee.

Ayunga is currently the joint leading marksman in the National League South after netting his 18th goal in the play-off semi-final loss to Dartford last weekend.

He is level with Darren McQueen, whose two goals gave the Darts a come-from-behind victory at Westleigh Park on Saturday.

In all, Ayunga netted 23 competitive goals in 2019/20 after returning to Hawks on a permanent deal following Paul Doswell’s arrival last summer.

The player had originally spent a short loan period at the club from Sutton - then managed by Doswell - in the first half of 2018/19. He netted on his first two starts in November 2018 - at home to Maidstone and at Dagenham - but only made two more appearances after that before being recalled.

In addition to his league goals in 2019/20, Ayunga also netted four Hampshire Senior Cup goals - including a hat-trick against a youthful Pompey XI - and one in the FA Cup.

Add in seven pre-season goals - including braces against Alresford, Bognor and former club Sutton - and Ayunga struck 30 times for the Hawks in 2019/20.

The player’s forthcoming move to Rovers will be the second time he has jumped from the non-league game into the EFL.

Back in February 2016, aged 18, he was signed by Brighton & Hove Albion for around £40,000 from Dorchester Town.

Ayunga had started his career in the youth ranks at Bridport before joining Dorchester after impressing during a trial spell with the Magpies in July 2015.

He netted seven times in 31 appearances for Dorchester before signing for Brighton

He never made a first team appearance for the Seagulls, though, and was released at the end of the 2017/18 season.

During his time at Brighton he was loaned to Burgess Hill Town and Poole Town as well as Irish clubs Sligo and Galway. His spell with the latter was ended when he suffered a broken leg in the summer of 2017.

Bristol Rovers first showed interest in Ayunga last autumn. Other EFL clubs have been monitoring his performances but Rovers are believed to be the only ones to have tabled a formal bid.

Doswell will now be forced to look for another new striker, having recently signed Tommy Wright from Sutton to replace Alfie Rutherford.

Discussions will soon take place regarding the make-up of Hawks’ squad for the 2020/21 South season.

At present, they have 10 players contracted for next season - nine of whom featured against Dartford and Wright.

Talks about new deals have had to be put on hold until Hawks knew which league they would be playing in next term.

Doswell admitted after the Dartford loss that had his side won promotion, there would have been changes.

Now they have failed to go up, there will still be changes - but possibly not as many as if Hawks were in the National League. After all, the top flight of non-league football is virtually a full-time league and Hawks’ lack of fitness - training only twice a week - went against them during their 2018/19 relegation campaign.

Some players who could have been jettisoned, had Hawks won promotion this summer, could now be kept on. But for some, the end of the Westleigh Park road has arrived.

Doswell could look to inject some more youth and pace into a squad which was not short on experience in 2019/20. He has already started that with the signing of 23-year-old Wright.

The average age of the starting XI against Dartford was 29.5 years old, and that included a trio of 36-year-olds in skipper Danny Kedwell, centre half Dean Beckwith and midfielder Nicky Bailey.

Kedwell celebrates his 37th birthday next Monday.

Doswell also brought on 36-year-old Andy Drury and 32-year-old Bedsente Gomis as half-time subs against the Darts. But neither impressed as Dartford used their pace going down the slight hill.

Ex-Horndean right back Benny Read was Hawks’ youngest player at the weekend, at 22 - and he was taken off at half-time, as Doswell reorganised following Josh Taylor’s red card, and Bailey deployed in his position.

Ayunga (23), Taylor (25), Sam Magri (26) and Roarie Deacon (28) were the only starters under the age of 30.

Dartford, meanwhile, introduced 19-year-old Tariq Hyde and the pacy 24-year-old Ky Marsh-Brown at the interval.

Doswell said after the defeat that his teams have struggled to combat teams with pace all season; the Dartford loss, in that respect, didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.

‘There are one or two components that haven’t been right for a while,’ he declared.

There is no transfer window at South level, so Hawks can start to make signings as soon as they want.

But first, they will almost certainly be bidding farewell to their top scorer rather than welcoming in new faces.

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The 2020/21 National League South season could start on Saturday, October 3.

That means Hawks’ first game of the campaign could be an FA Cup second qualifying round tie.

The FA are keen to schedule as many rounds of the FA Cup as possible, with the extra preliminary one due on Tuesday, September 1 - before any non-league season (steps 1-6) kicks off.

The governing body are due to announce the dates of next season’s major cup competitions next Monday.

Hawks will be happy with a league start date of early October - their new 3G pitch at Westleigh Park should be completed by then.

An earlier start would have seen the club forced to play their first handful of league games away.