Sam Denly hopes his Gillingham connections will help bring more young talent to Hythe Town.

Darren Oldaker scored twice on Saturday as the Cannons thrashed Shoreham 6-0 and the midfielder has already caught the eye at Reachfields.

He’s joined in the new-look Hythe squad by defender Henry Arnold, who’s also on the books at Priestfield.

Denly said: “I’ve got a good link at Gillingham so hopefully we can utilise that and it can help us in the feature. I know Steve Lovell well. His boy Mark played for me at Herne Bay and I still speak to him regularly.

“I know Jason Lillis, who’s coaching at Gillingham. I played for him at Herne Bay years ago and still speak to him regularly so I’ve got a good ‘in’ there.

“It’s a relationship I’m going to try to work on and hopefully it can help us out in terms of bringing players in on loan, which is invaluable.”

Hythe defender Mitchell Dickenson, who left Gillingham in May 2017, also played a role in the Oldaker deal.

“Dicko was pretty influential,” Denly revealed. “DJ is a fantastic player, the best midfielder in the league so he’s an excellent addition. He’s played first team games for Gillingham and there are League clubs looking at him.

“It’s a great coup for us, as a club, to get someone of his ability in. We’ve got him for a month, hopefully longer if we can get something done but he needs game time, which we’ll give him.”

Hythe are seven points off the Bostik South play-offs with 12 games remaining.

They go to Hastings on Saturday and Denly said: “All we can do is win games. It’s in the hands of the teams above us.

“They’re sitting there with a nice little gap but we’ve got to go on a run now and try to get points on the board, put a bit of pressure on them and see where it takes.

“We want to stay within touching distance. We’ve got 12 games to go and we want to give ourselves a chance.”