New Mills hold on to star man Kyle Hawley after bid to sign him from rivals

Top scorer Hawley is just back from a lengthy injury lay-off and joint boss Dave Birch said: “We have just batted off a bit of an approach for Kyle Hawley - he wants to stay which is great news.

“It was a bit of a cheeky approach from a club in our division, who are above us in the table.

“It is part and parcel of the game but does cause a bit of unrest when it raises its head. Hopefully we have now put it to be bed and we can move on.

“I spoke to Kyle and he is happy to stay. It's football and he is a very good player who shouldn't be playing at this level if I am honest.

“It's probably my fault for waxing lyrical about him all the time. He gets noticed.

“We didn't get him until a few months into the season and he's missed the last three months through injury, yet he's scored 16 or 17 goals.

“It's not just his goals he brings. It's his all round-play and link-up play too. He is a very good all-round player who I am sure will go on to do very well for himself out of the game if he can keep himself fit and free of injury.”

Last weekend's home clash with Ellesmere Rangers was postpone due to snow and Birch said: “It was really frustrating.

“Ellesmere are in the play-off and nine points ahead of us, but we beat them away a couple of weeks ago and we were looking forward to it.

“We knew it wouldn't be easy as, since we beat them, I don't think they've lost. But we were confident we could have got a positive result which would have put us six points behind them.

“Our game was the only game off, but our ground is higher up so we were always going to struggle.”

On Saturday the Millers host bottom side Rochester and Birch admitted: “I much prefer to play the better teams as we raise our game.

“Rochester have just changed their manager again so you don't know what that brings. I know they've had a couple of bad results but he has had a week or so in the seat and may have brought in players.

“It is a game we will be confident of winning of course when you see where they are in the league, but they won't come and give us anything easy. It will be tough.

“We have six games to go. We will try to win them all and see where it takes us.”

Joel Ankers (suspended) and Adam Muir (injured) will miss the game but Mills could have talented defender Elliott Cooke back from long term injury this week.

“We have a few lads back from injury now so things are not too bad, and we're looking to bring one or two more new faces in this week. Hopefully we can get at least one before the weekend,” said Birch.

“Also, Elliott Cooke is back in training this week, which is good news.

“Elliott is a key player and was a big part of the play-off losing team of last year.

“He is an attacking full back. A fit lad who is very talented.

“He dislocated his shoulder in pre-season, played a couple of games and then it came out again in training. So he had to go for an operation and it was worse than they first thought.

“His bicep had come away, it had been torn off his arm. He has had to have it all pinned and put back together and has been out most of the season. So he has been a massive loss.

“He will train this week and we will see how fit he is and if he is in with a shout of getting into the squad on Saturday.

“We will put him through his paces and see if it's too soon yet or not.”

The postponed Ellesmere game has been rearranged for Tuesday, 28th March (8pm).