Jay Saunders hailed Maidstone’s performance at Truro on Wednesday night.

Stones lead 2-0 after the first leg of their National South play-off semi-final thanks to goals from Joe Healy and Alex Flisher, while the defence limited City mainly to half-chances.

Boss Saunders said: “To come all the way here and win 2-0 win is great. I’ve just said to the lads it’s only half a job but to come away with a win is a bonus.

“It’s a team performance. You don’t want to make excuses but it’s a long day sat on a coach and only getting a couple of half-hour stops, so you do worry that it’s going to have an effect.

“Last 10 minutes you could see we tired but it’s a team performance, a squad performance.

“They’re a decent side and they’ve had chances towards the end, they’ve thrown everything at us.

“I thought it was a good game. We were very good first half.

“Second half for 20 minutes we were very good and then I thought we tired a little bit.

“You’ve got to put it down as a good away performance, the fact you come this far.

“When you’re travelling this far it’s a big ask and it’s a long day. It’s a tough place to come.

“You only have to look at their home record, it’s been pretty good all season.

“A lot of teams have come here and struggled but we’ve picked up a good result.”

The second leg takes place at the Gallagher on Sunday (4pm).

Read the match report from Wednesday night's match