Maidstone boss Jay Saunders believes his side have "thrown away" their chance of making the promotion play-offs – although he hopes being outsiders will help them make a miraculous recovery.

Stones have just five games remaining in Ryman League, Division 1 South but are on a poor run at the wrong time, having taken just two points from the last 15 to fall outside the play-off places.

Only goal difference separates sixth-placed Maidstone from fourth-placed Worthing. However, Stones have played two games more than the teams above them and seventh-placed Godalming, who are a point behind them.

Maidstone have won four of 13 games since the turn of the year and Saunders, pictured, admitted: "We’ve thrown it away, really. The squad we’ve had is good enough to have won the league, in my opinion, but a few things have cost us. We’ve had injuries to key players at bad times.

"I told the players a few weeks ago that if they wanted to make the play-offs then we needed to win these games but we’ve not done that.

"Maybe a few of them didn’t like the pressure and went missing, maybe we bottled it a bit."

Maidstone are without a game on Saturday and so will play an inter-squad friendly with the reserves and some trialists at Bearsted’s Honey Lane ground.