Dartford manager Alan Dowson believes two more wins will be enough to secure second place in National League South.

The Darts are making hard work of nailing down the runners-up spot behind champions Ebbsfleet, and securing home advantage for both play-off matches.

They lost 1-0 at home to Taunton on Thursday night but have four more games to play, starting away to Tonbridge on Saturday. They then visit Concord, host St Albans and end their regular season at Hampton on April 29.

“We’ve got a lot to be thankful for, being second,” said Dowson.

“When you have clubs who have been near the top all the time, you can have nights like this and make it into a disaster.

“But we’ll crack on, we’ve got four games left and probably need to win two of them to finish second.

“If we do that then we’ve got a great chance.

“It’s just mistakes that we’re making for the goals. We’ve lost 14 games this year and it might be eight or nine in the last five minutes I’d imagine.

“We’re still in pole position, we’ve had a bad day at the office. I’m as gutted as anybody but I can’t really moan about the players as they’ve been up near the top all season.

“You get daft people, daft sayings, ‘we’re lucky to be second’ – not for months you’re not.”

Dowson praised Taunton for their victory at Princes Park, although he felt the match had a pre-season feeling to it.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “We find ways of losing games. I knew it would be a tough game because I think their manager should get manager-of-the-year and their team should for the amount of travelling they do.

“We lacked energy and I thought their three centre-halves were excellent, they battered our centre-forward around a bit to be honest and did very well.

“We were camped in a bit in the second half and never really got going but we’ve got to get on with it, we’ve got another game on Saturday so there’s no problems here.

“We’ve had a chat but we’ve got a game in two days, there’s no feeling sorry for ourselves at this time of the season.

“I even said before kick-off in the warm-up that it felt like a pre-season friendly, that’s the feeling I had about the place. It never really got going, it was quiet and it had that feel about it.

“We’re fighting to be second, on and off the pitch really. The way it looks it didn’t feel like that. What can I do? I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I probably will tonight but after that I will get on with it, like I always do.

“We’ll make one or two changes for Saturday and in the next few weeks we’ve got to make sure we get results again.”

Sam Odaudu will replace the suspended Jernade Meade at Tonbridge this weekend while Dowson reported that injured trio Alex Wall, Charlie Sheringham and Samir Carruthers are all making good progress. The latter could feature at Concord next Thursday.