Boss Tommy Warrilow felt Faversham were well below-par in their home Southern Counties East Premier Division play-off semi-final shootout loss against Corinthian on Tuesday night.

Heading into the final-four fixture on an 11-game unbeaten run, winning six on the spin, the Lilywhites twice went ahead in the first half through goals from midfielder Billy Bingham and captain Connor Essam.

But a sloppy second-half performance allowed the Hoops to equalise through teenage defender Dean Nayler and they then won 4-1 on penalties after the 2-2 draw to end Town’s promotion push.

“I’m disappointed,” reflected Warrilow. “No one wants to lose a semi-final on a Tuesday night.

“But I’ll be honest, we’re better than that. I thought we were well below-par tonight.

“I got them together at the end and thanked them for an unbelievable run. It was 11 games unbeaten but, tonight, we’re better than that.

“I’m taking nothing away from Corinthian. That’s what happens when it goes to penalties - it’s a bit of a lottery.

Play-off semi-final match report: Faversham 2-2 Corinthian (Corinthian win 4-1 on penalties)

“But I must admit that I didn’t see that coming.”

The semi-final tie was played in front of a crowd of 803 at Salters Lane.

Warrilow said: “There was a really good crowd.

“There were some new people in there and I just wish that we could have put on a better show for them.

“It’s about the result at the end but, deep down, I’m just disappointed because I know we’re miles better than that.

“We’ve just come unstuck tonight. It’s a really important game to come unstuck in.”

Faversham’s pre-match preparations were far from ideal, with some of their squad arriving late after they had got stuck in traffic problems, although the Lilywhites manager refused to use that as an excuse.

“I won’t blame that,” said Warrilow, who was also without the suspended midfielder Sam Hasler.

“We did have some boys turning up really late - but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. We knew we had lost Has.

“I’ve been nursing Payney (Stefan Payne) along the last couple of games because he was one booking away from a suspension. That doesn’t really matter now.

“I wasn’t happy with the way we performed, in the second half especially, but it was nip and tuck. It’s not like they steamrollered us.

“But I said to the boys that I’m not going to batter them. We’ve had a turnaround of everything and everyone is buying into things now.

“We were hoping we could get over the line but, obviously, we came up short.”

It took Town less than five minutes to go ahead through a fine finish as former Gillingham and Bromley man Bingham emphatically fired in from a Bradley Simms long throw, with Essam heading home another Simms delivery after ex-Town winger Michael Hagan had briefly made it 1-1.

With the home side back ahead at this stage, Warrilow felt a first-half clearance off the line by Nayler to deny top scorer Payne after good work by winger Kieron Campbell was a crucial moment.

“We wanted to go a bit on the physicality side of things,” he said. “I think we had a key moment to go 3-1 up that we didn’t take.

“But that would have papered over the cracks.”

Ironically, it was then Corinthian’s Nayler who was in the right place at the other end to net after the restart to level things up after an Oscar Housego free-kick had come off the post.

“If you look at the second goal, that’s just about the second phase,” Warrilow conceded.

“You need to be on your toes and we got punished.”

Town never really got going during the lottery of the shootout.

Payne hit the crossbar with their first, defender Ben Gorham also blazing over goalkeeper Nathan Boamah, while on-loan Lilywhites keeper Jacob Russell failed to keep out any of Corinthian’s spot-kicks as Michael Golding’s team progressed to the play-off final at Erith Town on Bank Holiday Monday.

Warrilow said: “The penalties sort of summed it up. I know it’s a lottery but the penalties were just bad!

“But when it goes to penalties, anyone can win.”