Terry Brown labelled Margate's defending in Saturday's 6-2 home Vanarama National League South defeat to Whitehawk as shocking.

The Gate boss had been hoping his side could build on the previous weekend's first home league win of the season against Havant and Waterloovile, but they were blown away in the second half at Hartsdown as Whitehawk's Scott Neilson grabbed a 22-minute hat-trick.

There had seemed little to choose between the teams in the first 45 minutes, described by Brown as his side's best attacking half of the season, but he admitted that, in the end, it had turned into a 'spanking.'

Manager Brown said: " At half-time I thought that was the best first half, attacking wise that we'd given this year so I was absolutely delighted with that but defensively it was the poorest display of the season. We were appalling today against the best attacking side in our league, by a country mile.

"In Non-League (Whitehawk manager) Steve King has probably got the best offensive attack so they can punish you and they properly punished us today.

"The way they punished us in the second half where they broke us down and split us apart that was quality, but the fact that we couldn't just handle the bog standard basic stuff was bitterly disappointing.

"Defensively today we were shocking. I can't say that any of my back four did their job.We didn't win the physical battle in our box."

Brown admits it will be a big ask to rally his players before Tuesday's home game against eighth-placed Bath City, but he is unlikely to make knee-jerk changes.

He added: "When you get beat like we did today and it was a spanking, you're looking to change everything. We can't change everything and really we don't need to, we just need to get back to basics.

"I could look at my back four and say I need to change all four of them but that's not been the case most of the year so we'll get back to basics and desperately hope to keep a clean sheet against Bath on Tuesday."