Battle to Hastings
Kingstonian’s lingering playoff hopes finally died after a disappointing 1-0 defeat to bottom side Hasting United.
It was a conservative display from the hosts in a game that the struggling visitors dominated.
While Alan Dowson’s comments and selections seemed to indicate that he had given up on promotion a while ago, a run of wins could have kept his side in with a shout. He stuck with the experimental line-up once again and it was one of the youngsters, Jamil Okai, who had his side’s best chance after just 8 minutes, screwing his shot wide after bundling his way into the area.
From then on it was all Hastings. Kieran Murphy cleared the ball off the line from Alassane N’Diaye before Rob Tolfrey made two fine saves, firstly from N’Diaye’s low shot and then getting enough on Sean Ray’s header to allow Tom Bird to hack the ball away.
The second half saw the Ks get more of foothold on the game without ever looking like scoring. Wade Small and Lewis Taylor were thrown on, but the hosts lost shape and it was left to Hastings’ substitute Danny Ellis to sweep home a loose ball on the edge of the box to give his side three valuable points. Tom Bird came closest to levelling the scores, but his free kick bounced away off the post, rolling away and taking any hope for the rest of the league season with it.
Report: Jamie Cutteridge
