Crusaders drop out of play-off places

We dropped out of a play-off place as a result of this odd-goal defeat at Hitchin after conceding two first-half goals from headers from set pieces, but came back well after the interval and were denied a point when Jon Boardman’s late header was cleared off the line.
We had an early set-back when Diak John was injured and although he carried ion for a few minutes, the next tackle saw the end of his involvement and he was replaced by Mike Jones. To add to our problems, the home side took the lead in the 11th ,minute when centre-half Dan Webb was free to head home a free-kick. Paul Strudley pulled off a good save from Jonny McNamara, but was beaten again after 31 minutes when Brett Donnelly was free to head home another free-kick as he was left unmarked in the penalty area, while our only response had been a couple of good runs by Garyn Preen which came to nothing.
Hitchin had been the better side in the first half, but we came out flying after the interval and were right back in the game when Preen finished off a good move down the left within 5 minutes of the restart and we now looked capable of earning at least a point. Alan O’Brien came on and shot into the side-netting and Jon Boardman headed wide from a corner, but the Hitchin counter-attacks always looked dangerous as we pushed so many men forward. The game was near the end when Boardman came up and headed in powerfully from a corner, but Webb cleared the ball off the line and denied us the point we probably deserved.
Team ;Strudley, Tyler, John(Jones),Boardman, Day, Rusby, Clark(O’Brien) Rees,Jarvis(Goodger),Brown, Preen. Subs;Draycott, Herring.