St Albans City quite literally paid the penalty in their 2-1 home defeat to Dartford said manager Ian Allinson – although he admitted silly mistakes didn’t help their cause.

The match was notable for a tale of four penalties, two that were given and two weren't.

Joe Iaciofano put City ahead with one and Darren McQueen's spot-kick early in the second half turned out to be the winning goal but City also had two big shouts that brought nothing but a yellow card for diving for their scorer.

And the City boss felt the rub of the green started to go against his side from the moment they were given their chance for a handball.

He said: "I appealed for it because Joe has tried to pull it back inside and you see them given and not given.

"But the decision [the referee] gave there guided his decisions for the rest of the game.

"I've seen their penalty on the video, which clearly wasn't, and then we've seen the Sam Merson one and the Joe Iaciofano one.

"For me the Sam one is a penalty and Joe's isn't.

"But he gave them one early in the second half to level things up and he wasn't going to give a third after that.

"It's all about people's opinions and my opinion will always be different to the referees on one or two of those."

The video evidence certainly did give weight to Allinson's assertion that despite looking clear-cut at first, Dartford's penalty perhaps was slightly fortunate with their player swinging a leg to shoot but catching David Noble who was tracking behind him and losing his footing.

But the boss was also frustrated at the unforced errors which he said also contributed to their downfall.

"We didn't defend well enough," he said. "We switched off for a silly free-kick but we didn't stand on the ball and they've taken a quick one which before we know where we are, Dean [Snedker] has palmed it straight into the path of the centre-forward.

"He has to do better and he has to push it away from goal.

"It's a bit disappointing but it was an entertaining game and it was our best performance for a long time.

"We caused them some problems, we looked bright but we switched off on two set-pieces.

"We showed a lot of character and we could have got something out of the game but I'm probably more disappointed because the performance was better yet we've ended up losing again."