Harleston Magpies' hopes of promotion to the National League suffered a big blow on Saturday when they conceded a late goal to lose 2-1 at home to leaders St Albans.

It's still early days, with the season only at its halfway point, but Magpies are now eight points adrift of top spot in Premier A, despite having been unbeaten going into Saturday's big game.

After an even first half which saw Sam Patterson go closest for the hosts, Harleston started the second half brightly and after a prolonged period of pressure finally broke the deadlock.

Captain Leigh Sitch provided the pass into the circle and former Canadian international Elliott Marsh deflected the ball into the goal.

St Albans reacted strongly and within five minutes the scores were even after they had converted a penalty corner.

As the half wore on Harleston once again began to dominate proceedings but they failed to score from 13 penalty corners over the course of the game and with a minute remaining a counter-attack from St Albans resulted in only their third penalty corner and crucially their second goal.

With Norwich City having a weekend off Dereham took centre stage in Premier B, but they were unable to spring a surprise as they went down 3-1 at home to leaders Cambridge City II.

Cambridge went ahead midway through the first half but were soon pegged back after an excellent reverse stick finish by forward Falko Rosbergen.

It remained 1-1 at half-time but the visitors continued to stretch the Dereham defence and scored twice after the break to take the points.

There was a big local derby in Division Two North East and it was a one-sided affair, with Norwich City seconds beating Norwich Dragons 5-1 at the Den.

Jeremy Elliot led the way by scoring four goals and Ben Plumb was also on target while Henry Laming scored for Dragons, with Patrick Gordon their man-of-the-match. The victory kept City second in the table but still nine points behind leaders Harleston Magpies II who maintained their 100 per cent record by edging home 2-1 at St Ives.

Norwich Exiles had an excellent 3-1 win over leaders Newmarket II 3-1 in Division 5NE (Ian White 2, Robbie Dix).