Hollands & Blair were beaten by lower-league opponents in the Kent Senior Trophy on Saturday - a result that the manager says has killed their season.

Scott Porter has a proud record in knock-out competitions, and led Blair to Challenge Cup success last season, but watched his SCEFL Premier Division side lose their quarter-final game at home against Division 1 side Croydon 2-0.

It was a huge blow to the team who sit closer to the bottom of the table than the play-off chase with Porter admitting it’s all about keeping clear of trouble now.

Blair were without three key men for the match, with captain Louis Valencia pulling up in the warm-up to join Frankie Griffin and Harvey Welford on the sidelines. Those missing players were too much as the Gillingham side missed a host of chances at one end and made mistakes at the other.

Porter said: “It shows the depth in the squad that I haven’t got. Frankie was unavailable, Louis injured and Harvey not very well. Three big players.

“With the money I’ve got, I can’t have a big squad with top quality to replace those who can’t feature but on the flip side of that if you don’t take your chances and score goals you don’t win games.

“We had three or four chances in the six-yard box and individual errors at the back cost us the first goal and cost us the penalty (which made it 2-0). We weren’t good enough, made mistakes and experienced players were missing.”

Porter was hoping for cup success again this season, knowing how difficult it is to challenge at the top end of the SCEFL Premier Division.

He said: “I think the gap is getting bigger and bigger from the top 12 to the bottom sides regarding money, that is where we’re at. It’s irrelevant for Saturday because we should have won the game but the bigger picture is the gap is getting bigger with the depth of squads they’ve got and what the lesser teams have got.

“When the cold weather comes, the illnesses start, people pick up knocks and niggles and we haven’t got the depth to replace the decent players who can’t feature.

“We recently played Lordswood, a perfect Hollands & Blair performance (winning 4-1), you model yourself on that but we had three of the players unavailable on Saturday to do that.

“That result has killed the season. Now we have to pick ourselves up and we have got to show a bit of character, a bit of fight and a bit of passion to go and get as many wins under our belt as possible to stop ourselves getting sucked into the relegation battle.”

Porter believes he has the quality to stay clear but said: “100% on our day we do, we are a good side, but every single player has to be on their game, that is the difference. A top 10 side can allow for three or four to have a bad game because they have quality wrapped around them, with the side I have got we need every single player to be eight, nine or 10 out of 10 to get a result. This gets put to the boys each week and it proved on Saturday.

“We had two positives on Saturday, one was Jack Simon coming back, he was quality coming on after being out with an ankle injury and he changed it for us at half-time and Augusto Chiari came on at centre-half and they were the only positives out of the whole game, two players. You aren’t going to win a game like that.

“I am disappointed, very frustrated, I have the major hump about it and the boys have to show a lot of character and fight to push ourselves up the table to stay away from that relegation fight.”

Blair are at home to Sutton Athletic on Saturday. Their midweek game against Snodland Town was postponed due to a frozen pitch.

Sutton have just appointed former Gillingham youth player Ryan Huckle as their manager. His first game will be against Blair.

“Sutton in my eyes is a six-pointer,” Porter said. “I don’t like being down where we are, it is not enjoyable, but we have to get on with it and I will do that.”