Whitstable’s players have been told to grow up after more ill-discipline cost them three points at Hythe on Saturday.

Stephen Smith was sent off just 21 minutes into the game at Reachfields and James Morrish also saw red.

It finished 2-0 to Hythe and manager Scott Porter spelt things out to his squad afterwards.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “At any level you need 11 players on the park to have any chance of winning football games.

“It was another big game when sendings-off have done us.

“It was the same against Herne Bay (when Whitstable lost 4-0) and it changed the game again on Saturday. I thought the referee was very poor towards us.

“He got big decisions wrong but on the other side of it you can’t give him any indication to make those decisions and we did that.

“I didn’t think they caused us that many problems but we had limited chances because of how many players we had on the park.”

The feeling of deja vu was what irritated Porter most.

He said: “They were two big games: for the fans against Herne Bay and for me going back to Hythe after what I did down there.

“Our discipline’s got to be better and I spoke to the players about that because we’re not on the other end of it.

“We don’t benefit from people getting sent off. It seems to be us all the time but we’ve got to stop giving the referee any indication to make those decisions.

“We’ve got to grow up a little bit, as individuals and players.

“We know what referees are like and we need to have 11 players on the park at this level to win football games.”

Whitstable are 11th in Bostik South East, 10 points off the play-offs, ahead of Saturday’s home game against East Grinstead.

Porter said: “We need to win on Saturday to close the gap. Our aim as a side is to get in the play-offs and until it’s mathematically impossible, we’ll keep pushing to do that.

“We’ve come a long way since I came to the football club but I’ll keep pushing because I want to better myself and the players want to do that.

“We are where we are for the right reasons. We haven’t got the finances of the likes of Hythe so we need to have a reality check and say we’ve come a long way since I took over three seasons ago.”

Rob Gillman and Chris Elliott should be fit while Harry Brown is back after suspension.