Ryan Peters said that a ‘minute’s indifference’ in the dying embers of Saturday’s clash with Hampton & Richmond Borough at the Beveree cost the Magpies the chance of taking all three points.

United had been leading the game through Josh Umerah’s thumping finish into the corner of the net in the 71st minute and were managing the game reasonably well as they attempted to see it through to the final whistle.

Sadly, they weren’t quite able to do it, and a first league win since Chesham United were humbled 4-0 in their own back yard in late September, eluded them.

Having seen out six of the seven minutes of stoppage time, the Magpies gave away a cheap free kick from which Hampton were able to sling the ball into the box. Players lost their men and Kiban Rai was able to turn home an agonising late equaliser from Maidenhead’s point of view.

While admitting it hadn’t been the Magpies best performance this season, Peters felt they deserved to see the game through and take all three points back to Berkshire.

In his post-match interview with Maidenhead’s Scott Hargreaves, Peters said that he felt that ‘more often than not Maidenhead were outplaying teams’ but not getting the results they deserve due to their frailties in defence and their lack of a clinical edge in attack.

“We’re frustrated. Really frustrate,” he said.

“Our first half wasn’t great. But today I didn’t remotely care about the performance if we got the result. Up until 96 minutes we had the three points ready to take home. We make a slip.

“We give away a free kick we probably shouldn’t and then we lose our man and that allows them to score. I’m gutted for the boys because I thought for 45 minutes our management of the game was brilliant. We should have been home and dry.

“There was a lot of extra time, but nevertheless we need to be better and those seem to be the differences. We make a mistake they capitalise but a minute or two before that we had a chance to go 2-0 up and we don’t.

“We should have been 2-0 up before they score theirs. If you go back to the Horsham game, we make a slip and they punish us. We play some good stuff to get JJ in and we hit the crossbar. We’ve got to score more goals yes but ultimately if we’d kept a clean sheet today, we would have come away with three points, and we haven’t done that.”

Peters added that he felt Maidenhead were ‘in a funny place right now’ - but they’ve been in that place for most of the season and are struggling to extricate themselves from it.

Saturdays 1-1 draw was another competent performance to back up their goalless draw with 10-men Dagenham & Redbridge and their 1-1 draw at home to Horsham before that. But the Magpies need victories now to lift them back up the table. This result leaves them 18th in the table, five points above the drop zone, with a break in the schedule for Berks & Bucks Senior Cup and FA Trophy matches to come before they return to National League South action at home to Folkestone Invicta on Saturday, November 21.

“We’re in a funny place right now,” he said.

“We’re not getting enough wins clearly, but more often than not we’re outplaying sides and just not taking our opportunities at both ends of the pitch.

“I understand the frustrations. I completely get it, but I thought the boys worked their socks off in that 45 minutes and hopefully we can harness that and take it into our next game.

“If the whistle had gone at 96 minutes, I’d have said no (we don’t have a game management issue). It’s a minute of indifference, a minute of someone not tracking their man, it’s a minute that has cost us some points.

“Ultimately, we needed and wanted the three points, and we had them in the bag until a minute to go. They had a few chances, which without him (Jordi Van Stappershoef) maybe they score. But we also had some chances. Josh Umerah goes through on goal in the first half.

“When you get to 96 minutes at 1-0 you should be seeing the game out.”