EAST Thurrock United manager John Coventry believes Saturday’s 4-0 win at Bishop’s Stortford has assured his side of their National League South status for another season.

Rocks were rampant against Stortford, and the win now lifts them 20 points clear of the drop zone with just nine matches remaining.

A Ben Marlow brace, plus efforts from Tom Wraight and a first for the club from Femi Akinwande keeps Rocks 11th in the division.

And Coventry is targeting three more wins as Rocks bid to secure a top half finish.

“I am convinced we will stay up now,” he said.

“Mathematically we are not there but I don’t think the bottom three will get to 45 points, which we have now reached.

“We can now play without that pressure and see where it takes us.

“We have home games against Oxford and Chelmsford coming up in the next week and there is plenty to look forward to.

“We can look back with pride with what we have achieved,” he added.

“We have nine games left. Five at home and four away. The away games are quite difficult as the teams all have something to play for.

“But if we could get three wins from the last nine games that would be tremendous in my opinion.

“I was really pleased on Saturday. We had a poor result the week before (6-1 defeat at Ebbsfleet United) and a lot of people were disappointed.

“Bishop’s Stortford are struggling down the bottom but all the more reason for it to be a tough game.

“But we played the game and we were very good.

“On the Thursday night after Ebbsfleet we worked continuously on defensive shape and we didn’t go away from that.

“It has paid off and it is the most solid we have looked for a long time.

“It could have been eight. Ben Marlow was excellent and all-in-all it was really pleasing.”

The match also saw the much anticipated return of fans’ favourite Ryan Sammons, who has been out since the end of November with a broken collarbone.

Sammons played 60 minutes on his return and Coventry said it was an unexpected boost to have him back in the side.

“We got Ryan Sammons back on the pitch and we have missed his consistency,” he said.

“He has played almost 400 games for this club and he is an important part of this team.

“I took him off after an hour as it was his first game back and we didn’t want to overdo it.”