LONDON, CMC – St Lucia international Dominic Poleon said trying to earn relegation-threatened Ebbsfleet United points was more important to him rather than his climb up the goal-scoring charts in the fifth-tier English National League Championship.
The 30-year-old striker scored his 11th and 12th goals for the season in the second half to draw level in sixth with Will Grigg of leaders Chesterfield on the scoring chart before Bromley outgunned Fleet 3-2 on Boxing Day at Stonebridge Road Stadium.
“It’s tough at the moment,” Poleon said. “You’re half happy with a goal, but right now, in the position we are in, I want to win games, and if I could take winning games over scoring goals, then of course I would. We need to refocus and put it right in the next couple of days.
“It’s bitter-sweet. You can only half-enjoy scoring because the results matter now, so I’m just trying to do my job like everyone else is and help the team now.”
Poleon needs only one more goal for his 70th for the club, and he is five away from entering the National League’s all-time top 10 scorers list.
Ebbsfleet found themselves trailing at half-time after Michael Cheek put Bromley ahead with a finish from close range in the ninth minute before Poleon got his first in the 53rd at the far post.
An 18-yard volley from Ben Krauhaus in the 66th minute and a strike from Olufela Olomola in the 74th minute hurt Ebbsfleet before Poleon claimed his second in the dying moments of the second half.
Ebbsfleet is 22nd in the League on 24 points, and Poleon said the resilience his side displayed in the second half against Bromley was needed to enable them to avoid plunging to the sixth tier of the English league system next season.
“When you start slowly and things aren’t going your way, that performance is exactly what you hope for in the second half,” he said. “To come out and impose our game on the opposition.
“But it wasn’t meant to be, and we’ve got Bromley again in a couple of days, so hopefully we can put it right.
“If we can start that game how we started the second half, things will hopefully be in our favor, but we’ve got to start right. We can’t keep killing ourselves and going behind to try then and climb a mountain.”
The first goal from Poleon personified great predatory instinct after he timed his move perfectly towards a delivery from Ben Chapman with the opposition looking for off-side. At the same time, his second was a burst of pace that epitomized his time with Fleet.
“For the first, I knew Chaps was going to put the ball there, so I just needed to time my run, and I was in the right place at the right time,” he said.
“I’m a striker, I’m there to score, and if you don’t score, then you’ve got to make goals, but it’s a truly disappointing feeling not to have anything at the end of that game.”
He added: “Boxing Day was disappointing. It’s the fine margins. I didn’t think we played badly, just a couple of mistakes that are costing us now, and that’s the luck we are getting.”
Ebbsfleet faces Bromley in a return match on Saturday on the road at Hayes Road.
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