Hitchin Town saw their four-game winning streak come to an end away to Rushall Olympic - but manager Mark Burke has already turned his eyes to a Hertfordshire derby on Boxing Day with Kings Langley.

The Walsall-based hosts won 3-1 on their artificial pitch, the surface meaning the clash was one of only three games in the Southern League Premier Division Central to go ahead.

It leaves the Canaries sixth, one place and one point outside of the play-off positions, but the boss is confident they can bounce back in what he admits will be a tough game at Top Field.

Speaking to HTFC Radio, Burke said: "We’ve won the last four games and done really well. You don’t become a bad team overnight. 

"Rushall are a good team. They were in the play-offs last year and I’d expect them to be in the play-offs this year but I think 2-1 may have been a fairer result.

"But it is what it is. We have to dust ourselves down and go again on Boxing Day. We’ve got Monday and Thursday to prepare. 

"Chris Winton has just gone in as the new manager [at Kings Langley] and they got a great result against Basford. 

"I’m sure they will give us a tough game but hopefully we’ll get loads of fans out and we’ll try and reward them with a win."

The game at Dales Lane was decided either side of half-time.

Jourdain Nkalambi Masidi scored two minutes into stoppage time in the first half and he then added a second six minutes after the restart.

Stan Georgiou pulled one back for Hitchin with 15 minutes to go but William Shorrock finished off a break to seal the points for Rushall.

Burke said: "The time of the goals for them, that’s what you like. It was a difficult pill to swallow because I thought we were excellent in the first half. 

"We played some really good stuff and put a lot of pressure on them. 

"We probably [didn’t have enough] clear-cut chances but we put ourselves in those positions where we could have done but didn’t pull the trigger. 

"And we got punished in the first half but we were still in the game. 

"To concede right after half-time was a real body blow.

"However, we showed character and got it back to 2-1 and were giving it our all."