Steve Watt says striking a better balance between defence and attack will be one of his main aims between now and the end of the season.

The Hythe Town boss admitted not getting dragged into an Isthmian South East relegation battle was his top priority when he succeeded Sam Denly in September.

Hythe had lost five of their opening six matches, shipping 21 goals in the process, and that meant Watt had to adapt a pragmatic approach following his appointment.

However, with his team safely ensconced in mid-table and 10 games remaining he admits now might be the time to be a little more adventurous.

Watt explained: “Before I came in the club was struggling to win games and losing some quite heavily so the main goal was to make us a difficult team to play against, be hard to beat.

“To do that we had to sacrifice certain things, it meant not being so open.

“I would have loved to have come in and been all open and attacking but we had to address the other end of the pitch

first and I think we have done that.

“We’re not at the stage yet when we’ve got nothing to play for, we could win the remaining 10 games and you never know where that could get you, but we’re not in a relegation battle either so maybe we can look at trying to be more attack minded.

“The strength of our side is that we can line up or set up in many different ways.

“We’ve got the players to be more open and attacking but we can also be solid and compact.

“Early on it was a case of needs-must, we had to stop the rot but you’ve always got to have one eye on next season and look to improve where you can.

“It’s a case of continuing to try and build and get the right balance.”

Hythe travel to play-off hopefuls Whyteleafe (sixth) on Saturday and then face games against Cray Valley (fourth) and Phoenix (ninth), continuing a testing run of fixtures against sides most of whom have been in the top half of the table.

The Cannons had been due to host title favourites Hastings at the weekend but that match was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.

Watt explained: “We’re in the middle of a tough little patch of fixtures, when you think we’ve also played Chichester, Herne Bay and Sevenoaks all of whom are up there, but we’ve only lost one in eight so we’re doing all right.”

The postponed Hastings game has been re-arranged for Tuesday, April 7.

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