Dartford boss Steve King: I knew Hawks would tire – I knew our fresh legs would change the game

The pacy former Brentford academy winger was initially going to be thrown into the action at Westleigh Park around the hour mark.

But King brought him at the break after Hawks had been reduced to ten men following Josh Taylor’s moment of madness in lashing out at Elliott Romain.

Marsh-Brown set up Darren McQueen’s leveller and was also brought down by Chris Paul’s clumsy challenge to provide the penalty from which McQueen won the National League South play-off semi-final.

King had changed a winning formation, deploying a five-man defence in a bid to cope with Hawks’ threat in the air.

‘I got the shape wrong, I’ll admit it,’ said King.

‘I played five across the back with three centre halves as I wanted to deal with their aerial prowess - they’re very good in the air, they scored their goal off of that,

‘It wasn’t working, so we were brave enough to change it at half-time, went back to 4-3-3 and brought Browny on. He’s got legs, he can run at people, and I knew they would tire.

‘They had not played for four months, they were going up the hill in the second half and the pitch was getting heavier and heavier.

‘I knew by bringing on fresh legs, it would start to stretch the game.

‘Browny was different class. We knew we were going to get him on around 60, that was our plan. He’s changed the game, he was outstanding.

‘We looked better in the second half. Yes, they had 10 men, that’s going to make a difference, but we used the ball a little bit better. We could have run out 3 or 4-1 winners I felt with the chances we had.’

Hawks rarely tested keeper AJ Sesay in the second half, with Jonah Ayunga heading their best chance wide from inside the six-yard box in time added on.

There was no way past impressive centre halves Tom Bonner and Josh Hill.

‘We could have made it easier for ourselves if the right pass was made at the end,’ said King.

‘As a group we limited them to only a couple of chances in the second half and credit has to go to the back four. We aren’t quite clicking in front of them at the moment.’

The Darts were sixth from bottom when King was appointed last October. The win at Westleigh Park was his 16th in 24 league games since taking over, and his 12th in the last 15 matches.

Dartford will travel to Weymouth in next Saturday’s final after the Terras dramatically beat Dorking 3-2 in Dorset.

Yemi Odubade struck an injury-time winner after Dorking had come from 2-0 down after 11 minutes to level six minutes from time.

Josh McQuoid and Jaidon Anthony had put Weymouth in early control, but James McShane and sub Jake Gallagher pulled Dorking level.

It will be King’s fourth South play-off final, and he has lost the previous three with Farnborough (2011), Whitehawk (2015) and Welling (2010).