It’s the most fiercely competitive promotion race in the top six tiers of English football – and Hawks are right in the mix

Hawks’ entertaining midweek draw with Dulwich Hamlet has left the top eight separated by just five points after the opening four months of the National League South season.

Paul Doswell’s injury-hit squad would have leapt up to third place had they claimed victory, and Dulwich would have done the same.

As it was, the 2-2 stalemate at Westleigh Park enabled Hawks to jump two places, taking them up to sixth in a congested play-off zone.

Remarkably, the top 11 teams are separated by just seven points. That is the margin between 11th-placed Concord Rangers - hammered 5-0 at home by two tiers lower AFC Totton in the FA Trophy last weekend - and leaders Dartford.

At present, the NL South is the most competitive league in the top six tiers. There is a 17-point gap between the top 11 sides in the Premier League, and a 16-point gap between them in the Championship and League 2.

The gap is 11 points in League 1 and 10 points in the National League, the top flight of non-league football. In the National League North the gap is 13 points.

‘It’s like Snakes and Ladders,’ Doswell conceded prior to Dulwich’s visit. ‘Win a game and you can go up a few places, lose one and you go down a few.

‘It’s the most competitive Conference South league I’ve ever known.’

Hawks player coach Jamie Collins, speaking after the Hamlet draw, added: ‘Every side in the top half will be thinking they can get in the play-offs.’

Wednesday’s draw left Hawks having won just two of their six home league games this season.

It’s their away form - averaging two points a game from eight matches - that has taken them into the play-off zone.

And Doswell will note that his side have already welcomed three of the five clubs currently above them - Oxford City, Dulwich and Maidstone.

The manager has always believed that averaging two points a game is title-winning form. At present, table-topping Dartford - with 28 points from 14 games - are doing just that.

Steve King’s Darts lifted the curtain on the campaign by rattling off five straight wins, and seven in their opening eight matches. They followed that, however, with a run of five games without a win before a 3-2 success at Hemel Hempstead last time out.

Like most of the top sides, Dartford have a big goal threat - in their case Ade Azeez, who was at National League club Dover last season and who has 10 league goals this term.

Oxford City lost two of their big players to Hawks in the elongated close season - striker James Roberts and defender Joe Oastler.

In their absence, it’s a player who made the opposite move - Joe Iaciofano - who has helped City into second place, just a point adrift of Dartford.

Iaciofano asked to be released from his Hawks contract in a bid to move closer to his family. Reluctantly, the club agreed and he was next seen at Westleigh Park in September netting – almost inevitably - his first City goal in a 2-1 win.

The striker is currently Oxford’s leading league scorer with seven goals, and the club have only lost once in 14 NLS fixtures - 3-1 to Maidstone on September 4.

City are the only team in the division still unbeaten away from home, having won at Hawks, Hemel and Tonbridge and drawn at Braintree, Eastbourne and Dartford.

Ebbsfleet possess one of the biggest budgets in the NL South, and are currently third. They would have gone top on Tuesday had they won at Oxford, instead of losing 1-0. That was their second successive league defeat, having previously gone down 3-2 at home to local rivals Maidstone.

Fleet boast three proven scorers at sixth tier level. Former Leeds United striker Dominic Poleon has nine league goals this term, including hat-tricks against Tonbridge on the opening day and at Chippenham.

Rakish Bingham - once of Mansfield, Hartlepool, Hamilton and Cheltenham - is not far behind with seven league strikes.

Boss Dennis Kutrieb can also call on striker Elliott Romain, whose goals helped Dartford reach the 2019/20 NL South play-off final.

With that sort of strike power available, no wonder Fleet - with 32 goals in just 13 games - are the joint top scorers in the division.

Dulwich, in fourth, are another side with goals in them - their midweek pair at Westleigh Park taking them to 30 for the season.

Danny Mills is proven at this level and his opener at Hawks was his ninth in the league this season. Elsewhere, Darren McQueen and Chike Kandi know where the goal is too.

Dulwich are full time and have a budget helped by regularly attracting the division’s largest crowds of over 3,000 – a remarkable achievement at this level of the pyramid. As recently as 2012/13 they were playing at step 4, but anyone at Westleigh Park on Wednesday would not be surprised if the south London outfit finish in the play-off zone this season.

Fifth-placed Maidstone are the lowest scorers among the top 10, with 22 goals. But they too have one big threat - nine-goal Joan Luque. And wins at Oxford City and Ebbsfleet, as well as a deserved point from a 0-0 stalemate at Hawks last month, have already illustrated they can mix it with the best.

Hawks, with 23 goals, are the second lowest scorers in the top 10. Leading league marksman so far is midfielder Jake McCarthy, whose five-goal haul includes a hat-trick at Chelmsford - one of the club’s five away wins (only Dartford can equal Hawks’ 16 away points total).

With Scott Rendell and Alex Wall currently injured, Tommy Wright and James Roberts have been tasked with occupying the striker roles.

Wright has four NLS goals to his name, while Roberts has two - the same as Abdulai Baggie who opened his account for the club with a brace against Dulwich.

Baggie was a threat on the right side of a front three, with Wright through the middle and Roberts on the left. After looking lively in the first half against Dulwich, Roberts faded in the second and struggled to make an impact.

Not for the first time in recent weeks, though, there were no striking options available to Doswell on the bench. Indeed, Hawks didn’t make a sub against Dulwich - the first time this season that has happened.

Despite conceding twice on Wednesday, Hawks boast the third best defensive record in the division. Though precious clean sheets have been hard to come by - just four in 14 games - they have only conceded 15 goals. Dartford (11) and Oxford (13) are the only two clubs to have conceded fewer.

It is down in seventh place, currently occupying the final play-off place, that we find the division’s most prolific forward.

St Albans have netted 27 league goals so far, and Shaun Jeffers is responsible for 16 of them.

That haul includes hat-tricks against Welling and Billericay, while seven of his goals have come from the penalty spot.

In all competitions, he has netted 23 times - a third treble of the season arrived in last weekend’s 4-1 FA Trophy win at Oxford City, while one of his four FA Cup goals gave St Albans a shock first round win over League 2 leaders Forest Green Rovers.

Hawks were beaten 1-0 at St Albans in September, but that was one game Jeffers failed to net in - a Joe Newton own goal separating the teams.

The second highest scorer in the NLS can be found at eighth-placed Hungerford, ex-Hawks loanee Ryan Seager.

The former Southampton Academy player has 13 goals - 12 of which were scored in a seven-game purple patch. Seager netted seven goals in eight days, with a strike in a 1-1 draw with Hawks sandwiching hat-tricks against Concord and Maidstone.

Dorking Wanderers were five points clear at the top of the table last February, with a game in hand over second-placed Dartford, when the season was null and voided in the wake of Government funding being withdrawn.

Manager Marc White argued long and loudly that his club - and others who wanted to carry on playing - should be allowed to do so. But he was never going to win that argument and Dorking have, almost inevitably, found life harder this term.

They won just one of their opening five games and are currently 10th, albeit just seven points behind Dartford.

Their two festive fixtures with Hawks - at home on Boxing Day and at Westleigh Park on January 2 - are certainly ones to look forward to.

One former Hawks favourite, Wes Fogden, won’t be playing - he suffered a season-ending injury back in August. But four others - Ed Harris, Josh Taylor, Jason Prior and Alfie Rutherford - could well be in the Wanderers team.

Prior has missed a chunk of this term with a calf injury, but came off the bench in last weekend’s 2-0 FA Trophy win at Worthing where Rutherford netted twice.

Of course, the teams outside the top 11 of the NL South are also potentially dangerous. There are hardly any ‘gimmes’ at this level of the pyramid.

Eastbourne Borough, lying 12th, are the joint top scorers in the division - the same as Ebbsfleet - and will no doubt provide Hawks with a tough test in Sussex on December 11. Charley Kendall – a recent hat-trick hero against Slough – and Watford loanee Dom Hutchinson are Borough’s five-goal top league marksmen so far.

Behind Eastbourne are Chippenham and Slough, who have both handed Hawks a league beating this term. The Wiltshire side might have lost four times at home, but on their travels have only lost once.

This weekend Hawks welcome Bath City and - unlike the last two home games against Maidstone and Dulwich - a point will not be considered a good enough return.

The Romans, sixth from bottom, have not kept a clean sheet in any of their last 12 league games. After starting the season by beating Billericay 3-0 and Tonbridge 1-0, Bath have only won three times in those 12 fixtures.