Hythe Town boss Steve Watt would happily start the season tomorrow.

The Cannons continued their encouraging pre-season campaign by coming from a goal down to win 2-1 at Isthmian Premier Carshalton on Saturday.

Summer signings Ethan Smith and Johan Caney-Bryan scored as Hythe built on their 3-0 midweek behind-closed-doors victory over Potters Bar.

They won again, despite missing Frannie Collin, Alex Flisher, Ross Ibbertson and Ollie Gray, while Jarred Trespaderne was fit enough only for the bench.

“Things are taking shape nicely,” said Watt, whose side went on to win 3-0 at Snodland on Tuesday night.

“We’ve played two tough teams from the league above and those games have confirmed to me we’re going to be OK next year.

“Carshalton was probably our toughest game to date in pre-season, like I knew it would be, and credit to both sets of players for playing in that heat.

“We weren’t at full strength by any means and we’ve gone 1-0 down at a hard place.

“You’re looking to see how we react and within 10 minutes we were 2-1 up, so we couldn’t have reacted any better.

“All-round, it was a very good performance and another step in the right direction.

“We’ve found out more about the team and the system against a very good side who will be expecting to be up there.

“We’re still looking for a couple of players, you always are, but if the season started tomorrow I’d be more than happy with what we’ve got when I look at the personnel we’ve got and what they can do.

“It’s going to be a tough season, and at some point we’ll have a lot of players out and will have to shuffle the pack.

“That’s one of the good things to come out of Saturday, that we were missing all these players and it’s how do we adapt, how do players cope in different positions and being asked to do different things?

“We used Saturday for that and it was really positive.

“There aren’t too many negatives at the minute.

“There’s stuff to work on - it’s a new team with I think only two players left from last year - but it’s nice to figure these things out while you’re playing well.

“You do want things to go wrong in pre-season, but not much has so far.

“That’s not to say we’ve had things all our own way in games, not by a long stretch, but we’ve done well.”

Hythe’s latest signing is wing-back Sam Itauma.

He’d been on trial at Reachfields and set up the equaliser at Carshalton with a run and shot keeper Liam Beech could only parry.

“I’m looking forward to working with him,” said Watt. “He was at Hollands & Blair and found his way to Faversham last year.

“He’s a good player, physically strong, with good pace and good athleticism.”