Boss Simon Austin concedes Faversham have to stop giving cheap goals away if they are to climb away from the foot of the Isthmian South East table.

Striker Warren Mfula's first-half hat-trick was enough to earn Sheppey a 3-2 victory on Saturday at Salters Lane, despite strikers Zak Ansah - on debut - and Frankie Sawyer getting off the mark for basement boys Town.

It rounded off a run of three defeats in seven days for the Lilywhites who have conceded 32 goals across nine matches in all competitions since Austin last month took charge.

But Faversham’s manager took positives from the loss to the Ites and felt his troops deserved something out of the game.

“We have got to stop giving teams goals,” Austin said. “I think that’s the one negative out of today, we can’t give teams goals and then expect to win games.

“But other than that, even with having given them three goals, I still don’t know how we didn't win the game!

“We scored two great goals ourselves and, second half, I don’t know how many chances we have created, how much pressure we put them under, and I don’t know how we didn’t get a couple of decisions but that’s football when you are where we are at the minute.

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“This is a tough one to take because I really felt that we did enough to take something out of the game but the positive is there’s lots to work with within that.

“There’s been a lot of transition in a four-week period. There’s been some tough results to take - and this is one of them - but there’s massive positives to come out of today.”

But it was, at least, a much-improved display by Faversham who were beaten 5-0 at VCD last weekend and by the same scoreline at Cray Valley on Tuesday.

Austin said: “It was a big response. Look, points are what matters at the end of the day but it was a good response.

“Anyone that was here could see in the last 20 minutes of the first half, and the whole of the second half, what we did out there. We just didn’t get that [third] goal.”

Austin also explained why legendary centre-back Matt Bourne hadn’t been named in the squad to face Sheppey, with defender Antone Douglas starting as he made his debut.

“It was just a decision we made with the squad,” he said.

“Obviously we do need to strengthen and we have. We’ve brought Antone Douglas in."

It’s the start of a crucial period for Town, still with just seven points on the board after 15 league fixtures, who visit Three Bridges next Saturday and are at home to second-bottom Corinthian on December 3.