Ashley Miller hit the winning goals for Ramsgate on Saturday and boss Matt Longhurst believes the front-man can better his previous best goal tally.

Miller hit 13 goals for Faversham Town after a terrific 2018/19 season before moving to Ramsgate and Longhurst is confident he can improve what he’s done before as the hard work looks to be paying off.

Longhurst said: “Ash has been great, he has done really well. He is such a talented player and we have a lot more out of him without the ball, he is working extremely hard for the team, he has deserved his goals.

“It was a great finish last week against East Grinstead (sealing a 2-0 win) and two different type finishes on Saturday. Technically he is one of the best players I have worked with and he has matched that technical ability with his work rate and he is reaping the benefits.

“He has the best first touch I have seen, regardless of what part of the body it hits, in terms of bringing other people in he is so good and now he is adding goals. I think his best return in non-league was around 15 goals for Faversham before he signed for Ramsgate. We have had a couple of seasons cut short but he has five now and there is no reason why he can’t hit that 15-20 mark.”

Miller has three in two now and his weekend double came on eight and 51 minutes. Longhurst’s side had numerous chances to extend the lead but couldn’t make them count, with the home side pulling one back late on.

The Rams manager said: “We should have put the game to bed but didn’t take them and in fairness to Lancing, they were quite good, tactically they caused us a few problems and this is why at any level it is very dangerous to look at the league table and take too much from it.

“There are a lot of difficult games, it was quite a distance for us to travel, first half we were fairly comfortable in possession but out of possession they did cause us a few problems, we changed it slightly tactically and then second half we won a lot of the ball back high up the pitch which is where the second goal came from.”

While Miller is finding some scoring form for Ramsgate, Longhurst knows his team will now be up against some quality opposition strikers in their next two.

They host Whitehawk this Saturday, followed by a home match against leaders Cray Valley the following weekend. According to Longhurst they will be up against two of the best strikers in the league.

He said: “Splatt at Whitehawk and Barrington at Cray Valley are the best two no.9s in the league. The next two Saturdays we face both of them and so these next two will really give us a little bit of a barometer.

“I think after 15 games you will see the table take a little bit more of a shape, which we are slowly seeing. These are two very tough home games and it will give us a decent measure of where we are at, where we might need to improve or what we are doing well.”