New signing Rob Swaine believes he has a fight on his hands to nail down a starting place at Maidstone.

Swaine made his debut at Ebbsfleet on Tuesday night after signing from Chelmsford.

But the big centre-half has Will De Havilland and Alex Finney for competition - players the former Bromley captain rates highly.

Swaine, 30, said: "I know I’m battling against two very good players to get in the team. It’ll be tough.

"It’s healthy competition for all three of us.

"I’ve seen them play a couple of times now and they are good players.

"I think I’ll be fighting both of them and hopefully I get a chance."

A calf injury prevented Swaine playing against Solihull last weekend and he lasted only 45 minutes at Ebbsfleet before coming off as a precaution.

He's happy to be back in the National League having left Bromley in January last year for a big contract at Billericay, where he worked with Stones boss Harry Wheeler.

Swaine said: "Me and Harry had a chat. He was interested in me and I was interested in coming over.

"I’ve obviously played in the Conference before, I left to go to Billericay because I got offered a deal I couldn’t turn down.

"I’ve always wanted to come back so when he gave me the opportunity to come back I jumped at the chance.

"It does look a strong league this year.

"When you look at the fixtures there aren’t many games where you think that’s going to be quite an easy one.

"They’re all tough, there’s a lot of players dropping down as well into the Conference so it’s probably harder than I’ve seen it before.

"But Harry knows his stuff. I knew that last year, which is another reason I came here.

"He’s young, he’s hungry and I think he’ll be very successful in the future.

"Even now this season I think he’ll do well.

"I don’t see it as a relegation scrap.

"It’s tough because we’re down there at the moment.

"When we beat Leyton Orient in the FA Cup the other day I watched and thought what a great team we’ve got.

"We want to push up as high as we can but it’s easy to get dragged in."

Swaine left Billericay for Chelmsford at the end of last season - but it wasn't a happy split.

He said: "I can't go into too much detail because there's still some things ongoing.

"I won't go into it but I'm sure eventually it will come out."