Kings Langley will be aiming to get back on track tomorrow night after their run of good form came to an abrupt halt in a 3-0 defeat at Poole Town on Saturday.

The scoreline was the same as when Poole triumphed at the Sadiku Stadium at the start of November, but since then Steve Conroy’s side had lost only twice in 15 Southern League Premier Division South games as they’ve climbed up the table and into play-off contention.

The defeat means Kings remain sixth, one point outside the play-offs and eight adrift of tomorrow’s opponents, Metropolitan Police, who visit Hertfordshire after their scheduled visit to Farnborough fell victim to the weather.

Kings perhaps had a suspicion it wasn’t going to be their day when club stalwart Gary Connolly was injured in the pre-match warm-up, meaning Josh Coldicott-Stevens switched to right-back and Dean Hitchcock started in midfield after being promoted from the bench.

Poole started much the brighter of the two sides with the dangerous Luke Roberts proving a regular springboard for their attacks on the left.

Kings survived a couple of early scares, but the home side’s pressure was unrelenting and in the ninth minute they took the lead when Robert's far post cross found the inrushing Marvin Brooks, who made no mistake from close range.

Poole continued to dominate and James Constable spurned two golden opportunities to increase their advantage when, first, heading over from close range and then being denied by the first of a string of superb saves by Alex Tokarczyk.

Half-time came as a welcome relief to hard-pressed Kings, giving Conroy a much-needed opportunity to reorganise his beleaguered troops.

The immediate introduction of leading scorer Mitchell Weiss certainly galvanised the visitors into a few phases of attacking play with Andronicos Georgiou twice producing incisive passes that on another day may have produced a more tangible reward.

This was to be only a brief sojourn though, as once again the irrepressible Roberts was the instigator in doubling Poole's advantage, the winger’s piercing run and pin-point cross setting up Corby Moore for the simplest of tap ins.

Even then, Kings carved out good opportunities that should have reduced the arrears as, first, Jorell Johnson headed just over from a good position and then only a fingertip save from Luke Cairney denied Georgiou.

However, any hope of an unlikely comeback was quickly extinguished as the home side completed the scoring with a somewhat farcical goal, when an under pressure Tokarczyk ballooned his attempted clearance into the air, leaving Constable the grateful recipient of a free header into an empty net.

It was tough on the Kings goalkeeper whose heroics had been largely responsible for denying the home side an even wider margin of victory in a game the victory will quickly want to forget.

Kings Langley: Tokarczyk; Coldicott-Stevens, Johnson, Adebiyi, O’Keefe (Osborne 72); Ward, Hitchcock, Cook (Switters 62), Ofosu (Weiss 46); Howe, Georgiou. Subs not used: Collier, Connolly.