Sheerness East booked themselves a Kent Intermediate Challenge Cup semi-final clash against Premier Division Phoenix Sports after beating Crockenhill on Saturday.

The tie scheduled for next month is one East manager Dave Down is relishing as he feels his side is making great strides after recovering from a woeful 2008/09 season.

East dropped out of the Premier Division last season but are now challenging for an immediate return in Division 1 East and their cup run is an additional boost.

Down said: "I still look at us as a Premier Division team. Most of my players must have played 10 or 11 seasons at that level and we managed to beat Stansfeld who are top of the Premier in an earlier round so that was encouraging.

"We have no fear and we can beat anyone on our day.

"If we perform like we can we have a chance. All you can ask in a semi-final is a home draw and we’ve got that.

"The league is not beyond us and we’ve got a few players coming back. Things are looking a lot better than they were at the back end of last season. We did get punished then as we didn’t pick up the level well.

"We’re getting our heads around it now and making a fight of it."

East beat Crockenhill 2-1 and there was plenty of goalmouth action in the opening 45 minutes but East had to wait until the stroke of half-time to break the deadlock. Ricky Whiting headed a Glen Sheather corner against the post and Graham Andrews was on hand to slot home.

Sheerness had further opportunities but the game wasn’t decided until the 80th minute when Craig Holland headed home another Sheather corner. Crockenhill pulled a goal back in injury time.