Elliot Bradbrook says his player-of-the-month award is a reflection on Dartford's collective improvement in National League South.

Bradbrook was named the division's best player for December after scoring four goals in five games.

The Darts skipper said: "I didn’t know anything about it until someone told me. It was quite nice.

"I got it once before when we got promoted out of Conference South (in 2011-12).

"It’s one of those things where if you score a few goals, you get some recognition.

"As a team, we’ve been doing pretty well for a while so it’s nice for me to get it but it’s nice recognition for the team a little bit, from what we’ve been doing."

Dartford have climbed from 14th to sixth recently on the back of a 10-match unbeaten run.

Bradbrook said: "I don’t think we were doing too badly earlier in the year. A few mistakes were costing us and we weren’t getting the results we probably deserved.

"Something’s obviously clicked into place. The team’s been a lot more settled, the formation’s been a lot more settled over the past couple of months and we’re starting to see the rewards of that a little bit.

"Everyone’s playing with a bit more confidence now, we’re scoring goals, we’re causing teams problems and we’re pretty solid at the back. If you take all that into account, you’ve got a pretty good side there if you can keep that going."

Bradbrook has already scored nine league goals this season, including seven in his last nine outings.

He said: "I always try to get to 10 and I’ve managed to do that pretty regularly over the years.

"We’re attacking teams a lot more and I’ve been playing a little bit deeper and that allows me to make late runs into the box. That’s how I’ve always scored goals, getting in there and trying to make things happen.

"When you are on the upper hand a lot, which we have been, playing good football, getting the ball out wide and getting balls in the box, that’s when we’ve been causing teams some problems.

"That helps my game. If I can make those late runs, every now and then you get on the end of them and that’s been happening quite a few times recently."

Crosses from Ryan Hayes are so often the source of Bradbrook's goals.

He said: "That’s what Ryan’s good at, putting those danger balls into the box.

"He gets a lot of stick, Ryan, about his work-rate or whatever but he is capable of putting those balls into the box. He’s been doing that for years, he continues to do it and we’re still scoring off the back of them. It’s nice to see him doing well as well.

"You know, if the ball goes out to Ryan, where he’s going to try to put it. Every now and then, it goes over or it doesn’t go quite where he wanted it but six, seven or eight times out of 10, it will go into that danger area.

"For me, it’s all about trying to make the right runs into those areas."

More from Elliot Bradbrook in Thursday's Dartford Messenger.