Hakan Hayrettin is drawing on all his title-winning experience to fuel Maidstone’s promotion bid.

The Stones moved top of National League South with eight games to play after winning 2-1 at Braintree last weekend.

They’re two points clear of long-time leaders Dorking going into Saturday’s home game against St Albans.

Nothing changes for Stones boss Hayrettin who learned from two of the best when it comes to getting over the line in championship battles.

He was part of Martin O’Neill’s Wycombe team who won the Conference in 1993 and, more than two decades later, he teamed up in the dugout with John Still to get Luton back in the Football League.

“Eight cup finals, that’s all we’ve got,” said Hayrettin. “I’m feeling all right.

“I’ve been here as a player and a manager, haven’t I? I know the drill, I know what’s needed.

“I think when you’ve experienced it previously you’re going to know the pitfalls and the pluses, aren’t you? You know the positives and negatives.

“The positives are we’ve got the momentum and the negatives are if we get carried away and think we don’t have to turn up, we could be in trouble.

“That’s exactly what happened at Slough a fortnight ago (2-1 defeat) and it mustn’t happen again.

“I think playing for Martin O’Neill was an experience in itself. He made sure we were strong and resilient and didn’t get carried away.

“That’s the approach I’m trying to take, where you are what you are.

“I’ve worked with John Still for many years and won the Conference with John and he was very similar to Martin.

“It was never too high, never too low, all you’ve got to do is your job. Do your job and know your job.

“You get the occasional blip, like we did at Slough, and I wasn’t happy with that because it wasn’t our ability that let us down, it was our work rate and endeavour.

“That frustrated me no end, as you can imagine, because I’m big on that. You can be Pele but if you don’t work, you don’t get to use your abilities.

“We just need to keep focused, the staff need to keep doing their job and drilling it into the players’ heads what’s required.

“We’ve got eight cup finals, don’t get distracted, do your job and go from there.

“If the players are nervous, they haven’t shown me. Potentially one or two may be but we’ve just got to keep everyone level-headed.

“It’s so important we make sure the players at our disposal understand what’s required and I do that in abundance when I go in every day.

“There’s no need to think outside the box now. Just do what you’ve been doing all season.”

Maidstone showed character in abundance to win at Braintree with 10 men after Regan Booty saw red for the third time this season.

He was dismissed for handball on the line, after Jack Barham’s cracking volley had given United the lead.

Maidstone felt the ball was already over the line - the linesman appeared to signal a goal - but Booty was sent off and Matt Johnson levelled from the spot.

Barham’s brilliant lob, straight from the restart, restored the lead and Maidstone dug in to see out the last half-hour a man down.

Booty is set to start a three-match ban this weekend.

“Saturday was a tough, tough game,” said Hayrettin.

“We showed great mental strength and spirit and discipline to get over the line.

“We won using different qualities on the day. I saw it at Havant and at Dulwich earlier in the season (battling 0-0 draws) and I saw it in abundance on Saturday.

“We’ve got better at standing up to what’s being thrown at us.

“We were down to 10 men, we had to change the way we play, it was a great performance against a good team who’d beaten Ebbsfleet that week.”