Belper Town boss Grant Black left angry after last-gasp defeat at Carlton Town

In a battle between the sides either side of the play-off zone, Tom Wilson’s equaliser had cancelled out Aaron O’Connor’s opener, both early in the second-half, but Tyler Blake struck with virtually the last kick of the game to reduce the gap between the sides to four points in Belper’s favour with three games to go.

Black said: “The performance was good for 80 minutes as we were creating chances and although we conceded we got level quickly.

"But then there was a lack of leadership and responsibility and we came undone in the last minute which obviously shows we’re not as mentally strong as I thought we were.

"I don’t expect, with the size of us, to get done by a cross with everyone back in there so it’s disappointing, but we have to accept it and realise that we’re in a tough position now to try and get over the line because Carlton will win their next three games, that’s for sure.

"It’s no good creating chances and playing well for long periods and coming off having been beaten.

"We didn’t have Alex Peterson and Jakub Niemczyk and our keeper [Dan Moore] got a bad injury in the first-half which he carried on playing with and Ben Rhodes had to come off so you take those things into account, and if they’d carved us up and scored a good goal then fair enough but to score like they did leaves us massively disappointed.”

Belper host second-placed Halesowen on Saturday then go to Loughborough Dynamo on Monday.