CANVEY boss Jeff King slammed his side's "diabolical defending"as the Islanders crashed to their seventh successive Conference away defeat at Dagenham and Redbridge last night.

Against a side they had beaten 4-2 on home territory exactly a month earlier, Gulls, by no means for the first time this season, suffered a second-half slump which dismayed their followers in a 1,542 crowd.

After a 3-1 defeat King admitted: "We conceded early in the second period once again after doing well in the opening half. Don't ask me why that keeps happening, it's certainly not lack of fitness and we keep on to the players about concentrating.

"But with the diabolical defending we displayed in the second-half we wouldn't have won in the old Ryman League days, let alone at this higher level.

"For the first goal we stood and watched a cross come over and, even when our goalkeeper Danny Potter made a great save from the first effort, we left their player to shoot home the rebound.

"Their second followed a horrendous attempted back pass from Peter Smith. Then, when we pulled one back through the only good goal of the night, a tremendous strike by substitute Neil Midgley, we were at it again.

"We had two clear chances to clear before a soft shot that was going nowhere deflected off our player to allow their substitute striker to shoot home the third.

"The players who made the mistakes have apologised and that's only right, but defending of that sort is unacceptable."

Full match report and pictures in Tuesday's Echo