Horsham suffer slender loss at play-off chasing Hornchurch

Breaking the deadlock, new signing Greg Cundle marked his first Horsham start with a well-taken strike to finish off a superb team move but the Hornets could only hang on to their lead for four minutes.

Rising highest from a corner, Ricky Hayles positioned himself in front of George Bentley before burying his header from close-range.

Tensions grew throughout the second-half after Bentley was cynically challenged by Arthur Lee but the home side found the winner in the 65th minute when a floated corner found Chris Dickson who finished sweetly.

The result sees the gap between the two sides narrow to just two points, although the fourth-placed Urchins crucially have three games in hand over the third-placed Hornets.

Di Paola said: “It was a tough game, they haven’t lost at home this season, so they’re obviously very difficult to beat and we knew it was going to be hard.

“They’re another you could put down as one of the teams that could win it because they’re very difficult to play against.

“They were very good from dead ball situations and we found it really hard to deal with that which is not like us. I don’t think they caused a lot of problems from open play but we didn’t cause them a huge amount of problems either.”

He finished: “The pitch was a bit of a killer, but the boys did pretty well. I can’t be too critical, we battled and a lot of teams would have rolled over and got comfortably beaten so credit to the boys in that respect.”

Horsham: Bentley, Metcalf, O’Sullivan, Kelly (Harding 64’), Shelley, Miles, O’Toole, Dawson, Cundle (Charman 84’), Harris, Lavery (Roberts 73’). Unused: Pamment, Smith.