St Albans City manager Ian Allinson praised goal-scoring hero Zane Banton after his strike at Hampton & Richmond Borough fired Saints back into the National South play-offs.

The attacking midfielder has had a frustrating year at Clarence Park with chances limited in the first few months of the season.

But since getting a regular run of games he has started to display the talent he has and Saturday’s goal was his third of the month.

And the City gaffer was delighted with his contribution.

Allinson said: “Zane has got that in him and we know that. The first three months of this year were probably wasted from his point of view but he’s taken his chance now and grabbed it.

“He’s been excellent.”

The goal was a culmination of a fine team move involving Solomon Sambou and Khale Da Costa and that fact pleased Allinson almost as much as the finish by Banton, coolly fired into the corner from inside the box.

And that is something Allinson wants to see more of.

He said: “Not only was the finish good, the build-up was good too. We’ve passed it into Khale, he’s back-heeled it and from our point of view it was a great goal.

“These players have got a lot of quality and at times we don’t show enough of it in games but with the goal we’ve came up trumps.

“They’ve showed that quality and a great finish from Zane in terms of keeping calm and putting it in the bottom corner.

“We’ve brought young Liam Sole in from Milton Keynes who will give us more depth on either wing and in the number 10 role.

“Having him on the bench may have given both Zane and Khale a little kick up the backside as they were both outstanding.”

The game itself saw Saints dominate and the only grumble the manager had was they didn’t score more than the one goal.

He said: “We had the better of the chances in the first half although we didn’t look like we were going to score.

“But the second half was very good.

“We looked strong, we looked powerful and we created lots of chances.

“The only thing that let us down in the end is we didn’t score more than the one goal.

“With five minutes to go we were still hanging on at 1-0 and they could have quite easily got an equaliser out of nowhere when we should have been out of sight.”