Hastings Town maintained their eastern promotion challenge with a deserved 2-1 win at Burnham.

Town bounced back following their surprise defeat at Eastbourne Borough on Boxing Day and dominated the first half in which they opened up a two-goal lead.

The visitors came close to taking the lead on 16 minutes when a Chris Honey effort from a tight angle just cleared the cross bar.

Two minutes later Paul Jones had a fierce effort cleared off the line and Steve Yates' follow up was pushed away for a corner by home goalkeeper David Smalley.

Duncan McArthur took the flag kick and picked out Adam Flanagan who headed home from ten yards.

Hastings increased their lead four minutes before the break when a 30-yard free kick by McArthur curled inside the top right hand corner.

The second half saw Burnham have more possession but they seldom created clearcut chances.

They did pull a goal back with 16 minutes to go when Tony Thompson glanced home a header at the near post from a corner on the left.

In the closing stages Town should have increased their lead when Jones got clear but Smalley did well to divert his shot behind for a corner.

Eastbourne Borough lost 2-0 at home to Chatham and walked into criticism from boss Garry Wilson.

He said: "It's just frustrating that we played so well against Hastings and then performed so poorly.

"To be fair, Chatham came here to do a job by stopping us playing football and they did that extremely well. But if we want to be come a force in this league, we have to cope with teams like Chatham and should really beat them at home."

Chatham took the lead on 52 minutes when Simon Austin touched home Peter Overton's near-post header from a corner.

Things got worse for Borough when Matt Allen and Stuart Tuck both had to go off injured.

Chatham got their second goal in the 77th minute when Tommy Binks rounded Paul Stark.

St Leonards' home match against Erith and Belvedere was off.