Jay Saunders was always confident Maidstone’s 10 men would beat North Ferriby.

Stones were leading through Liam Enver-Marum when right-back Jack Evans was sent off for bringing down Reece Thompson shortly before half-time.

The visitors boldly kept two up front for the second half, switching to a three-man midfield in light of Evans’ dismissal, and quickly killed off the game through Alex Flisher.

Saunders had no complaints at the red card and felt his team handled the reshuffle well.

The Stones boss said: “I think he’s got to go. As soon as the forward gets in that position and cuts across - Jack’s made no attempt to tackle him, he’s more trying to get out the way but he’s clipped his heels - that’s the way it goes.

“I’m disappointed for Jack because he’s been good recently. Nine times out of 10 you see them as sendings-off so it is what it is.

“I wanted to keep two up front so it wasn’t just wave after wave of attack and I felt we did that. The three in midfield worked well.

“I felt quite confident second half. We were dealing with anything long they put in our box and never really felt they were going to open us up or beat us out wide.

“I felt quite confident if I’m being honest but you always want that second goal and getting that early on second half was a massive boost.”

Saunders praised the energy of his young side after keeping Ferriby at bay, with victory moving Maidstone up to 12th place in the National League.

He said: “Age-wise I think you’ve got Lee Worgan, Jamie Coyle and Liam Enver-Marum and other than that, everyone’s under 24.

“They’re young lads but we’ve got loads of energy, they’ve got no fear, they’re having a go and we’ve got quality in good areas.

“I give the lads credit. They’re working hard, they’re enjoying it but we won’t let them get too carried away.

"It’s three points and that’s all it is. If you go and lose the next two it doesn’t mean a lot, so we’ll get them focused for Tuesday and go from there.”

Read the match report from Maidstone's 2-0 win at North Ferriby