The Hawks were knocked out of the FA Cup last night at the first time of asking following a 3-2 defeat at K Sports.

Saturday saw ‘The Paperboys’ force a replay after a fine performance between the posts from Luke Hanley, who was at it again last night as his side scored in extra time to progress into the next round of the cup.

Goals from Ryan Warwick and Joe Shelley were not enough as K Sports hit back twice to send the tie to additional minutes, and a knock to Javaun Splatt imposed a rather makeshift strike force before Richard Jimoh sent the hosts into ecstacy.

Saunders offered his thoughts on last night’s performance, as the turnaround is a swift one before Sittingbourne travel to Sussex for the opening match of the Isthmian South East season.

“I think it was a mixture of poor finishing and excellent goalkeeping. He [Lucas Hanley] was fantastic in both games, he made some really top top saves again last night and I thought he was brilliant but that said the players know my feelings: we were wasteful in front of goal and got caught on the counter a couple of times which is disappointing.

It was a disappointing result but it was never going to be easy there, never. I’m disappointed not to win but we’ll dust ourselves down and go again Saturday.”

“Like I said after the game last night we’ve got to start preparing straight away. Because of extra-time last night I just felt we couldn’t get them into training tonight because there wouldn’t be any mileage in that, bearing in mind most of them played 120 minutes last night.

It’s just a case of rest up now and look after themselves, I could’ve done with a day or two more in recovery time but it is what it is, it’s the nature of the beast. We’re still buzzing for Saturday, really looking forward to it and the players have got to be strict in their rehab over the next couple of days, and we’ll be good to go at the weekend, there’s no doubting that.”