A young Kings Langley side were denied a dramatic draw after a pulsating and controversial end to their 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Hitchin Town on Easter Monday.

Trailing 1-0 to Toby Syme’s goal early in the second half, Town looked to have made the points safe in the first minute of injury time through Patrick Tshikala.

However, the deficit was immediately halved by Mitchell Weiss before, in the fourth minute of injury time, Jorell Johnson thought he’d snatched an equaliser. But the goal was controversially ruled out for offside to leave Steve Conroy’s men feeling hard done by after an impressive display.

Buoyed by Saturday’s 4-0 win at Farnborough, the hosts fielded debutant Under-18 goalkeeper Lewis Hodgins in place of loan-tied Martin Bennett and switched Jacob Cook to left-back for the injured Callum Adebiyi.

With the game not getting the green light until 2pm following the heavy rain, the home side’s young keeper was in action early, punching clear from Kevin Byrne, while Weiss saw a low shot held by Michael Johnson at the other end as both teams tried to play football in difficult conditions.

A superb Josh Coldicott-Stevens through ball put Gareth Price through one-on-one with the Hitchin keeper, but the latter got a hand to deflect the ball for a corner as the Langley man tried to slip it past him.

Lucas Kirkpatrick hit the bar for the visitors at the quarter mark and the half closed with Hitchin in the ascendancy, with Hodgins making an unorthodox stop with his feet and following up with two good saves from Brett Donnelly.

However, the complexion of the match changed three minutes after the restart when Town right-back Syme sent over what appeared to be an intended cross and the ball floated over Hodgins into the far top corner of the net.

Kings came straight back and Weiss hit the junction of post and bar and Louie Collier just couldn’t get his feet right for a Stevie Ward low cross.

Conroy sent on the first of three Under-18 substitutions and Harrison Kenny’s first touch saw his chipped shot go just wide, while fellow 17-year-old Aiden Collins was given a rougher welcome when flattened from behind by Tshikala when in full flight.

With 10 minutes to go it was the turn of 16-year-old Edu Toiny-Pendred to join the fray and it says much for the trio that they were integral parts of the Kings onslaught in search of parity.

Town were dangerous on the break and two more good saves by Hodgins preceded a superb one-handed low stop from a Connor Vincent header, but the valiant youngster could do nothing about an unmarked Tshikala converting a Josh Bickerstaff header back across goal from a free-kick.

Undeterred, Kings hit straight back when the persistence of Arjun Jung ended with his low byline cross turned in off the far post by Weiss a minute later, and then came the controversial end to the contest.

The fourth and final added minute was on the clock when Jung fired a shot through a defended box and Michael Johnson made a flying save. The ball rebounded back and Jorell Johnson reacted quickest, coming from an onside position to launch a diving header into the net. The flag went up for offside, but it was Ward, wide and not interfering with play, who was offside when the shot was launched as the contest ended in disappointing fashion for the hosts.

A blistering start had been central to Kings’ impressive win at Farnborough two days earlier as they raced into a three-goal lead inside 22 minutes.

It was Johnson who opened the scoring in the seventh minute when he touched home a Cook shot following a Ward corner.

Boro had hardly recovered from that when another Ward corner was steered into the net by a Weiss back-header to stun the home crowd, but there was a response when Bennett parried a low shot and Adebiyi swept the loose ball to safety.

Ex-King Connor Calcutt had a header saved by the impressive Bennett, but Kings delivered the knockout blow when Jung stepped up to a free-kick and bent it around the wall with a hint of deflection off a defender and past static goalkeeper Aaron Bufton.

The visitors threatened to run riot as Price and Louie Collier saw shots just the wrong side of the post, while the best Boro could offer was an audacious 35-yard shot from Ambrose Gnahore that forced Bennett into a full-bodied parry.

The hosts had a better share of the possession after the break, although this may have been due to Kings conserving energy with another fixture less than 48 hours away.

Michael Elias-Fernandes directed a header just past the post, while Bennett pulled off a point-blank save as the result of a fierce free-kick. But Kings always looked comfortable with Price going close twice and having a very valid penalty claim ignored.

The final nail in the coffin for Farnborough duly arrived when the ever threatening Ward was felled by CJ Fearn and the Kings player dispatched the resultant spot-kick with panache to complete the season’s biggest win for Conroy’s emerging young side.