A lack of finishing proved costly for Royston Town manager Steve Castle but he could take positives from the FA Trophy defeat to Kingstonian.

The two sides had drawn 1-1 after 90 minutes, Dan Newton cancelling out a first-half Gus Sow penalty, and it was from the 12-yard mark that the Crows headed to the exit door, losing 4-3 in the shoot-out.

But the Royston gaffer felt that a bit more composure in front of goal, and a bit more quality would have prevented what he classed a season-long problem for rearing its head again.

Castle said: "Our finishing wasn’t up to standard but we’ve also played a lot worse and won and it was slightly unfortunate.

"The attitude and intention of our lot was very good, we just needed that little bit of quality in front of goal, which you could probably say for both teams.

"Brandon [Adams] has held his hands up and blamed himself for the loss. That’s a bit drastic.

"His movement was excellent, we just needed that bit of quality.

We’ve had three or four chances away from him and we haven’t made the goalkeeper work enough times.

"It’s been a season-long problem. We haven’t had 90-minute performances.

"We’ve been fantastic in spells, we’ve been fantastic over 45 minutes and it just hasn’t quite happened.

"I don't know why. It’s the same set of lads who are performing well.

"We’ve been the better teams at times and just haven’t had the finishing or have had a lack of concentration which has let teams back in.

"It is just unfortunate but we have to eradicate that."

He had no quarrels with the penalty that was conceded, although it happened on the far side of the pitch away from the dug-outs.

However, he did feel an incident just a minute before when Spyros Mentis went through and was bundled over, should have resulted in a red card.

He had praise too for on-loan Stevenage striker Harry Draper.

Castle said: "He’s coming back from a long-term injury, he’s been loaned out to what he will class a lower team, and he’s found it hard to hit the heights.

"His work-rate was superb and his application was too.

"We just needed a few breaks in the penalty box and we could have won it comfortably."