Dartford suffered a second reverse in six days against a fellow struggler, following the 3-0 defeat at Southport on Saturday, as the cleanest strike of the match, a volley on the turn from Gareth Seddon sealed this relegation six-pointer.

Despite an unquestioned effort from the men in white, they could only really point to a shot from second-half substitute Lee Noble that tested Chester’s keeper Aaron Chapman.  Whether it was the pressure of the situation or the live BT Sport cameras, Dartford never really displayed the form that had seen them haul themselves back into the hunt for Conference Premier survival.

In a frenetic first half, both teams lacked composure and were unable to retain the ball long enough to build any momentum.  Chester’s only real pressure came from counter-attacks that invariably ended with a cross finding the head of either Mat Mitchell-King or Ross McAuley.  Whereas Dartford, when they were able to bring the ball down, did work a number of good positions around the Chester box, but too often the final ball was a hurried effort.

The clearest chance of the half came inside the first two minutes as a ball from Jim Stevenson caught out the high Chester backline allowing Alex Wall to power into the area, but the on-loan Luton striker’s drilled cross just evaded a desperate lunge from Danny Harris.  The only other half chances were symptomatic of the tension around Princes Park as both Wall and Chester’s Gareth Seddon blazed shots wildly past the respective goals.

Tony Burman had asked for a greater effort from his side, but it was Chester who dominated possession.  Alan Julian had to be quick off his line to bravely save at the feet of Matty Taylor.  The Darts’ keeper was then caught out as Seddon headed over from 6 yards out, after McAuley had ignored Julian’s call and deflected Lewis Turner’s cross into the path of the Chester striker.

Seddon made up for his profligacy six minutes in the second half.  Ross Killock’s long ball forward bounced awkwardly, deceiving McAuley, and Seddon latched onto the dropping ball, swivelled and fired a volley over Julian’s outstretched arm.

Dartford looked to take a more direct route to get back in the game, and the crowd came alive as Wall appeared to be caught by Chester stopper Aaron Chapman, allowing Andy Bond to clear, but their appeals were waved away.  They threw on Lee Noble and Mikel Suarez to bring more energy to their attacking play, and Jim Stevenson tried a speculative shot from 45 yards having seen Chapman off his line, then the keeper had to save from a Noble effort.

Noble played Harris in behind the Chester defence, but Lewis Turner was strong enough to deny the Darts’ forward a clear shot.  At the other end, John Rooney and Seddon both failed to test Julian as the visitors hit on the counter, before Noble drew a full-length save from Chapman, virtually the only difficult save the Chester keeper had to make in the game.

After a run that saw Dartford pick up thirteen points from a possible fifteen, two defeats against relegation rivals have dented their survival hopes.  Darts’ boss, Burman, isn’t giving up hope though, as he explained, “The boys are disappointed in there.  Effort-wise, they’ve put it in, but there was a lack of quality in the last third and our delivery into the box just wasn’t good enough.  We work on that sort of thing, putting the ball into the right areas, and we have scored lots of goals from set-pieces.”

I don’t think the keepers had a save to make first half and there was a battle in the midfield.  As the home team it was up to us to take the game to Chester, and it wasn’t to be.  We felt that Chester were playing a high line and I thought we could get at them.  For the last 10-15 minutes we had the two big guys up front, but we still couldn’t get the right balls into the box.  The best bit of quality in the match was their finish; a bit of brilliance to win the game.”

He continued “To lose the game, a crucial game, means it’s three points that we haven’t got.  We needed a bit of intelligence, someone to put their foot on it, but I can’t tell you why it didn’t seem to work tonight.  Once we went a goal down, it wasn’t as though we panicked, but we should have done better.”

This league is ruthless.  You’ve got to do your business at home, and we have been doing that recently.  We’re not relegated because we lost tonight, so we’ve got to carry on and turn it round.  It’s a thin line between winning and losing, and we’ve lost the last two.  We’ve got to turn it round next Saturday.  We’ll pick ourselves up and go to Cambridge; we’ll train hard this week and hopefully get something from the game.  This league, as ruthless as it is, is where we want to be.  The situation we are in is difficult, but we do have an opportunity to stay in it, and we’ll be doing our best to do that.”

“There may be a different picture by 5 o’clock tomorrow.  It’s out of our hands.  We had the opportunity to do something about it tonight, but we’ve huffed and puffed and not come away with anything.”

DARTFORD: Alan Julian, Lee Burns, Mat Mitchell-King, Rory McAuley, Tyrone Sterling, Alex Woodyard (Lee Noble 62), Max Cornhill (Mikel Suarez 74), Jim Stevenson (Nathan Collier 81), Elliot Bradbrook, Danny Harris, Alex Wall.

Subs not used: Kenny Clark, Deren Ibrahim.

CHESTER: Aaron Chapman, Lewis Turner, Ross Killock, Paul Linwood, Joe Heath, Craig Mahon (Craig Lindfield 90), Andy Bond, John Rooney, Nathan Turner, Matty Taylor (Brendan Daniels 90), Gareth Seddon.

Subs not used: John Danby, Ricky Bridge, Jamie Mensah.

Goal: Gareth Seddon 51.

Booking: Ross Killock 84.

Attendance: 1,610
Referee: Mr Kevin Johnson
Assistants: Mr Joshua Smith and Mr Lloyd Wood
4th Official: Mr Paul Harris