Andy Hessenthaler felt Dover's Boxing Day victory over Bromley was their best performance in the league at Crabble this season.

First-half goals from Ricky Modeste and Will De Havilland laid the platform before top scorer Inih Effiong's 11th goal of the season sealed the points 15 minutes from time.

The win, watched by a crowd of 1,210, was just Dover's third in the league at Crabble this season and their first there since beating Eastleigh 3-1 on October 29.

It also ended a run of four National League matches without a win, lifting them up to 12th in the table.

Boss Hessenthaler felt Whites were worthy winners against a side who started and finished the day in third, and says his players have now set the benchmark.

He said: "Conditions were difficult for both sides but I thought we thoroughly deserved to win, it was a fantastic performance, we dominated from start to finish.

"They came out second half with a bit more intent, which I thought they would do because, obviously being 2-0 down at half-time and knowing 'Smudge' (Bromley manager Neil Smith) I knew he'd want to get them going.

"They did come out with a bit more intent, made it harder and pinned us back a little bit but we defended generally pretty well, that's the way for us to play, from start to finish.

"If they do that week in week out, we're not going to win every game but if you put that amount of effort and desire in, you've got more chance of winning games.

"That's probably our best (home) performance in the league, obviously we had the Southend game, which was tremendous (Whites won 1-0 in the FA Cup) but I think we totally dominated today, we dug deep, and we kept a clean sheet which was important.

"It was a great win, a great performance and a good start to the Christmas period."

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Hessenthaler made four changes to the side which had drawn 1-1 at Chorley on Saturday and he may continue to rotate his squad as Whites travel to Ebbsfleet on Saturday before the return with Bromley on New Year's Day.

He explained: "I had some difficult calls to make today, I left Jai Reason out and brought Jack Munns in and he was the catalyst, we were braver with the ball, him, Ricky Modeste and Nassim (L'Ghoul) out on the left hand side.

"He was bright not so much so in the second half because he picked up a knock and had to come off, then you've got the likes of AJ (Anthony Jeffrey), Riggy (Steve Rigg) and Roons (Paul Rooney) to come on and help out.

"We've got a really good squad in there and we've got to use it, we know we can perform better (at home) and today was a day when we did, we've got to continue that.

"If you can't take confidence from a performance like this against one of the top sides, you're never going to but we've got to follow it up, they know that.

"We go again on Saturday against another of our local rivals who are fighting for their lives in the position we were in last year .

"It's another really tough pitch, it's going to be wet there, they had their previous game called off so it's going to be wet and we'll have to perform like we did today to get another result."

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