Derby day delight for Kings Langley as Tring slip up at home

In doing so, Kings retained their unbeaten league record on the road, kept their fourth consecutive clean sheet on the bounce and rose to sixth in the table with games in hand.

After conceding an early goal, Athletic found themselves chasing the game and paid the price for missing a couple of great chances to level the scores before Kings put the game to bed with a killer second goal midway through the second half.

A third goal in time added on merely rubbed salt into the Athletic wounds and capped off a controlled, rather than scintillating performance from the visitors.

Defender Luke Ladyman gave Kings the perfect start with a volley from an Alex Campana corner that any striker would be proud of.

However, the goalscorer then immediately let opposite number Adam Toone in on goal, only to be rescued by a smart save off his weak shot from debutante keeper Charlie Crowley.

Rather than ignite the game, the rest of the half was a somewhat dull affair as Kings fell back, using a deep midfield that tended to isolate the front pairing of Campana and Daryl Atkins.

Matt Evans was called on to pull off a flying save from Campana, while Crowley did likewise from Kevin McManus, and Ryan McMahon and Ollie Butler also served warnings to Kings with near misses.

Tring resumed the second half on the offensive, punctuated only by a Callum Adebiyi run and shot that was well saved, but suddenly Kings rose a gear as Campana picked up the ball wide left, beat two defenders in the box and delivered a rocket into the far corner of the net.

Mitchell Weiss was immediately introduced up front for the uncharacteristically misfiring Atkins, and Langley turned on the style as the game came to life.

Athletic produced some sustained pressure, but Kings looked the more inventive – a fact confirmed when they signed off with some fine interchanges between Weiss and Nick Jackson that resulted in a squared ball for Dean Hitchcock to place a low shot past Evans in time added on.