Royston's play-off hopes take hit as Castle laments 'massive missed opportunity'

Steve Castle saw defeat at home to Hitchin Town as “a massive opportunity missed” to gain an advantage on their play-off rivals.

The Crows boss watched his side lose 1-0 courtesy of a Callum Stead header on the cusp of half-time.

With 13 places separating the two sides at the start of the day, and Alvechurch losing to Redditch, the Crows let a great chance of moving closer to the play-off spots go by.

"It was a massive opportunity missed," said a disappointed Castle. "We are looking to get into the play-offs and winning games in a row will help get ourselves in there but right now I will settle for a goal scored."

That goal the Crows’ manager was desperately looking for looked unlikely in this game, with Royston allowing multiple chances to slip away as they chased the game.

The boss said: "We couldn’t finish, it was as simple as that. We could have been there until New Year’s Day and still wouldn’t have finished.

"I thought the lack of quality we had when putting the balls into dangerous areas, for either a cross or a shot was poor and everything we tried to do just didn’t happen.

"We were really disappointing going forward."

The former midfielder was quick to add that his visitors were valiant winners at Garden Walk.

He said: "They are fighting for their lives and they showed it. I can not fault the effort of our lads at the back, they were never really in danger besides from one set play, but they edged it and they deserved it."

After beating their local rivals in the A505 derby, Canaries manager Mark Burke saw this victory as a potential turning point in their season.

He said: "In our last three away games we have got seven points from nine which is a great return that I wasn’t expecting and it proves on our day we are a decent team and we have to build on that.

"We now need to claw our way out of the relegation zone and into that midtable area."