Miles at the treble in home victory

Littlehampton took the lead after only four minutes when Ollie Smith caught the South Saxons defence napping and won the ball off a defender, for Jon Miles to provide an untidy but telling finish.

On ten minutes, Stuart Sexton weaved his way past four opponents and found Miles, who squared across the circle for Steve Jenkins to find the roof of the net.

South Saxons applied a great deal of pressure during the rest of the first half but Littlehampton’s defence held firm, with Joel Lodge outstanding.

The Hastings-based visitors got a goal back early in the second half when a misunderstanding between John Edge and keeper Guy Newman led to an opportunist goal for Saxons.

As the half wore on, Littlehampton began to dominate and midway through Jenkins split open the Hastings defence and Miles beat the last defender and was brought down by the keeper. He converted the resulting penalty stroke into the roof of the net.

The matter was put beyond doubt when a thunderbolt of a pass by Lodge was turned in by Miles at the far post for his hat-trick.

Littlehampton welcomed back Mike Philips and Andy Mills after long absences as the team defended well and scored some cracking goals to give them optimism for the second half of the season.

Littlehampton moved up a place to eighth with the win, while South Saxons dropped a place to fifth.