Stand-in captain George Fowler has called for a quick response after Maidstone went “off-script” against Aveley.

The Stones lost 1-0 on Tuesday night to a Millers side whose win sent them top of National League South after eight games.

Defeat - a first in six matches - cost Maidstone their unbeaten home record and they’re looking to hit back at Chippenham this Saturday (3pm).

“I feel as a team we’ve come off-script a tiny bit and yet again a cross has killed us and we’ve ended up losing 1-0,” said Fowler, skipper in the absence of Gavin Hoyte and Sam Corne.

“It’s a shame because we were on a five-game unbeaten streak and we hadn’t lost at home but now we have to bounce back on Saturday and get another little run going again.

“It’s always nice to get a bit of momentum but the important thing when you lose that momentum is to get it back as quick as you can.

“Fair play to Aveley. First half in particular, they looked sharp.

“They had a couple of players coming in from out wide who caused problems but we’ve got to defend the cross better for the goal. It comes down to that moment.

“No matter who it is in that area, someone has to take charge and go and meet the ball rather than waiting for someone else to do it, but we’ll have to watch that back and go through it and make sure we learn from it.

“We’ve got to stop that from happening and then we’ll make life easier for ourselves.”

Stones players held their own dressing-room inquest into the goal that cost them against Aveley.

Fowler added: “You can tell the team care.

“Everyone was frustrated after the result.

“No one’s going in with their head down and being quiet, everyone wants to sort it out in a manly fashion.

“We have to rectify things on Saturday.”

Maidstone are 10th in the table, two points outside the play-off places and six behind new leaders Aveley.

Fowler feels the division is still settling down.

“We’re eight games in, everyone’s still finding their feet,” he said.

“It’s quite hard to look at the league and see who’s going to be up there yet.

“It’s just important we make a solid position, show teams what we’re about, make this place a fortress and then we pick up what we can away.

“People are going to look at teams that have come down from the National League, Yeovil being a big club, Torquay as well, and us being included in that pile.

“But we never disrespect any team.

“We always do our due diligence on teams, look at their recent games, go through the analysis, look at their strengths and weaknesses and that’s what I mean about going off-script.

“We did all that work on Aveley and we probably didn’t really attack their weaknesses or counter their strengths.”