St Albans City’s play-off hopes took another blow as they suffered a heavy 5-0 defeat at relegation-threatened Hungerford Town.

The defeat pushes the Saints down to ninth in the National League South and maintains their poor record of just one win in their last five games, while Hungerford moved out of the relegation zone with their first win in five.

The danger signs started early for the visitors when Danilo Orsi-Dadomo burst into the area, but his shot was straight at Dean Snedker.

Snedker was called upon again a few minutes later to deal with a Richie Whittingham free-kick, and he got down well to his right to turn the strike away.

The Saints then created their first opportunity of the game when Liam Sole, making his first start after joining on loan from MK Dons, forced Michael Luyambula into a save after working himself into the area.

Less than a minute later, though, the home side struck their first of the day when Orsi-Dadomo was in the right place at the right time to turn in Cameron Hargreaves’ right-wing cross.

The Crusaders continued to push forward following their opening goal and extended their lead not long after when Darren Foxley’s 20-yard free-kick looped over the City wall and past the diving Snedker.

The home side further added to City’s misery in first half stoppage time when Orsi-Dadomo converted his second of the game, picking up the ball in the box and finding the far corner brilliantly.

The Saints came out looking far more prepared in the second half and almost scored within two minutes of the restart, but Sole saw his drilled effort turned away by Luyambula.

Hungerford continued to be a real threat on the break, though, and should have extended their lead when Hargreaves latched onto a through ball, but he saw his effort palmed away by Snedker.

Sole came close to dragged City back into the game once more soon after, but his cross took a huge deflection and Luyambula managed to claw the ball out from underneath his own crossbar.

The turned out to be the closest Saints would come to getting back into it and they were close to being four goals down a couple of minutes after that chance, but Snedker reacted well to save a deflected cross before Marcus Johnson Schuster’s curler hit the bar.

The fourth goal did eventually arrive, though, as Matt Jones picked up a wayward throw from Snedker and finished brilliantly from the edge of the area.

Hungerford sealed the game three minutes later as Whittingham beat the offside trap and easily beat Snedker to compound a miserable day for the Saints.

Ian Allinson’s side will try and arrest their slide on Saturday, February 16 when they host an in-form Wealdstone side who are level on points with the Saints and ahead a place in the table by virtue of goal difference.