Halstead Town manager Mark Benterman is glad that he has a force of strikers rather than an individual hitman to keep his team on course in the Thurlow Nunn League division one promotion race.

The Humbugs’ 1-1 draw at Great Yarmouth Town last weekend saw them keep the pressure on the leading pack and they head into Boxing Day’s clash against Haverhill Borough at Rosemary Lane (kick-off 11am) sitting just six points behind second-placed Ely City and with two games in hand.

It is a position that Benterman admits he would have accepted had he been offered it at the start of the campaign and he was delighted to see a goal-scoring debut from Sam Cripps to earn a point at the Bloaters.

Cripps’ arrival and goal on his debut has been a boost for Halstead, who are one of the only front-runners not to have a player among the list of division one’s leading scorers.

However, that’s not a situation that is bothering Benterman.

He said: “Looking at the leading scorers’ chart, I think the second-placed lad is from Stowmarket and they’re 13th in the table.

“So I don’t think you can read too much into that as it may be a team that relies heavily on one player for their goals.

“The last time we had one individual player who really led the way like that was Jordan Palmer, while now we have a lot of people scoring goals and don’t rely on one person.

“We’ve got Jordan Pavett come in (from Witham Town), Sam Cripps showed at Yarmouth what he can do, we have Tom Holdstock, Marcus Warren has a few and Hutch (Jordan Hutchings) has got a few so we have four or five who are scoring goals.

“That takes the pressure off.

“When you have just one person, it can make you vulnerable as everyone will go through a blip at some point in the season and it can hurt you when your striker has that if you rely heavily on him.

“Two years ago, we had Jordan Palmer end the season with 25 to his name, but behind that we had a couple getting ten to 12 and we need people getting goals again.

“However, I’d like to think Tom Holdstock and, from what we saw at Yarmouth, that Sam Cripps will be getting 15 plus goals this year so I’m feeling very positive.”