Manager Alan Dowson won’t read too much into Dartford’s shock defeat last weekend.

The Darts lost 3-1 at home to Hemel Hempstead - their first league loss at Princes Park since August.

It’s handed the initiative back to rivals Ebbsfleet, who went top on goal difference in the race for the National League South title on Tuesday night.

But Dowson will allow his team “a bad day at the office” after an impressive recent run which included back-to-back wins over the Fleet.

“We were flat, the crowd were flat,” said Dowson. “We’ve got to do something to excite the crowd.

“I’m just disappointed but I’m not going to be suicidal, we’ve just lost a game of football where before we’ve won many. We’ve just got to go again next week.

“There’s no problem, we’ll get over it as always and we’ll get in the play-offs as we said we would. You’ve got to write it off, you’ve got no choice when it’s a game like that.

“It’s given us a little kick up the backside and told us we’re not great when we’re trying to play the beautiful game and we don’t compete and stand off people.

“The bottom line is if we don’t compete we’re going to lose matches.

“I’m not going to dwell on it because we can’t. It’s not a fall-off at all [from the Ebbsfleet games]. We can’t read too much into it, we’ve just had a bad day, that’s all it is.”

It was a timely reminder there are no easy games in National League South but Dartford have a chance to respond at home to Taunton this Saturday.

Dowson will expect a vast improvement across the board, but especially from keeper Dan Wilks and his back four.

“I thought the second goal was a long way out, and Dan’s got to do better,” said Dowson.

“The back four as well, it was a poor day at the office. If we’re not going to compete, we’re not going to win football matches.

“In this league there’s no easy games. Hemel have got a new manager in, they’ve made some new signings and they did really well. But looking at us, we were poor.

“We need to pick ourselves up this week ready for this Saturday.

“We’ve just go to dig in. Every time we’ve had a bad day we’ve picked ourselves up and gone again, and that’s what we’ve got to do.

“We’ve got to move forward and get the positive feeling back. There’s 18 games to go and we’ve got to try and win as many as we can.”

Darts’ scheduled home London Senior Cup clash on Tuesday against Met Police was postponed due to a frozen pitch.