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John Still blamed individual errors for Maidstone’s late collapse at Dartford.
The Stones conceded twice in the last four minutes at Princes Park as yesterday’s Kent derby ended 2-2.
It was the fourth away game running they’ve lost points at the death.
Head of football Still felt goalkeeper Jake Cole should have claimed the corner that led to Darts’ first, scored by Tom Bonner.
And he put the equaliser down to central defenders Ryan Johnson and George Elokobi as Darren McQueen made it 2-2.
Still said: “We defended poorly. I think their first goal, the goalie’s got to save that because it’s a cross, it’s routine.
“Second goal, we’ve got to win the header and we’ve got to get the cover.
“They never played round us, never played through us in the second half.
“They kept the ball in front of us a bit, we held our line well but the two goals are really poor defensively, particularly the first one, I think the goalie’s got to catch that.
“You can’t coach individual errors.”
It had all been going so well for Maidstone after a change of system at the break helped them open up a 2-0 lead with goals from Dan Wishart and Ibby Akanbi.
Still said: “We changed it at half-time and it went perfect for us, we scored two very good goals and at that point I thought we were controlling the game.
“This is a local derby and people are going to put an extra bit in, you can’t afford to make mistakes.
“They might look at our goals and say we should have done this but these were two routine ones.
“One was a cross from a corner, it’s gone beyond him, he’s come for it and hasn’t got it, and Ryan and George have got to do better for the second.
“Ryan lost the first header, we should have had cover on that but we didn’t, so that was disappointing.
“Goals change games and once they got their first they were the better team and deserved to score again.
“I don’t know if it’s a mental thing. If I asked the players they’d say no but facts are facts.
“You can manipulate facts but there are certain facts you can’t manipulate and that’s four games we’ve conceded late goals.
“If you dissect the goals, they’ve not opened us up, it’s two routine balls.
“It’s weird one really because all through my career I’ve said if you’re away from home in a local derby and take something from it, you’re happy.
“But you’re not happy when you’re 2-0 and draw, of course you’re not.
“I respect local derbies immensely.
“I’ve had outstanding teams and got beat and I’ve had teams that weren’t as good as the team we were playing and won.
“You haven’t got to play well, you’ve just got to win but we made routine errors that contributed to us not taking three points.”
