Dartford manager Alan Dowson gave a brutally honest assessment of his team’s performance on Saturday.

The National League South leaders lost 3-1 at home to Hemel Hempstead – their first defeat on home soil in the league since the end of August.

“I’m always honest,” stated Dowson. “If we’ve played well I’ll say we play well, if we win games and say we don’t play well then I try to tell the truth at all times. It was really bad so it’s very disappointing.

“The whole place was like a morgue, really. We didn’t really get going at all, I thought we were useless.

“My goalkeeper and back four were a massive disappointment. The manager didn’t have a good day at the office, my midfield didn’t make a tackle, we didn’t look effective up top.

“It hasn’t been flat for the last couple of months but you cant read too much into it. From one to 11, and the subs coming on, we were poor. You can’t win games when you’re poor. We need players to step up a little bit and they never did. That’s three goals like we were (conceding) at the start of the season.

“They hit a Worldie that the keeper could have saved I thought and that killed us a bit. Were they the better side? Yes, they were. We’ve conceded the worst goal ever, which was the third one.

“You’ve got Samir (Carruthers) who has been great for us this season, awful. You’ve got Jack Smith who was awful, the two wide ones were non-existent. When it’s like that you need two or three players to step up and none of them did.”

Dartford’s defeat coupled with Ebbsfleet’s win at Dover means the gap at the top is down to three points.

The Fleet have three games in hand on Dowson’s men and the Darts boss re-iterated his pre-match views that they are outsiders in a three-horse race for top spot.

“We’re not in their league,” he said. “Ebbsfleet and Havant have got more than us, they’ve got more budget than us and they should win the league.

• Report: Dartford 1-3 Hemel Hempstead

“We’re just trying to compete the best we can. I always knew it would be a great achievement for the lads to get into the play-offs.

“We haven’t got the money others have in the top 10 so we’ve got to compete the best we can and now and again we’ll have a bad day like this.”