Hendon were unable to recover from the shock of conceding two goals in the opening four minutes of their preseason friendly against Potters Bar Town at The Walk on Saturday afternoon. In a close and competitive game - in this case not a euphamism for something more unsavoury - both teams had plenty of chances, but squandered them.

Barely two minutes had elapsed when Hendon were penalised five or so metres inside the Potters Bar half. Goalkeeper Richard Wilmot, organising his defence, asked them to play high up the field and James Dickie took full toll. He saw Wilmot was some distance off his line and drilled the ball with fantastic precision over the goalkeeper and off the stanchion below the crossbar.

Two minutes later a slip by Kevin Mason allowed Gabriel Fanibuyan a free run at Wilmot and the striker made no mistake, drilling the ball into the net from 12 yards.

Amazingly, within four minutes Hendon could, possibly should, have been level. First Ross Pickett did well to outduel Gregg Pike and then got the better of teenage goalkeeper Charlie Wilson. With a defender covering, Pickett had to lob the ball goalwards and he watched in despair as it bounced off the crossbar.

Two minutes later, Dean Papali made a break into the penalty area. He skipped around Dean Harding, then Wilson, but his goalbound flick was brilliantly blocked by the recovering Harding.

Hendon's defence did not look as comfortable as it had in earlier games and both Fanibuyan and Richard Howard should have extended the Scholars' lead.

At half-time, Hendon made two personnel and one positional change, bringing on James Burgess and Alex Gibson, for René Street and Mason, respectively. Pickett dropped back into a central defensive role and looked very steady, while Gibson looked lively up front. Potters Bar, meanwhile, made seven changes.

Goals for Hendon, however, would not come. The Greens felt they should have had a penalty after 53 minutes when Jamie Busby was taken out as he ran onto a flick from Lee O'Leary. The referee correctly ruled that any contact was accidental.

The introduction of Takumi Ake livened things up, and he was joined by Danny Edwards, Greg Deacon, Rakatahr Hudson and Ricky Pattenden as the second half progressed.

Wilson's inexperience allowed Hendon a number of second-half openings and, three times, defenders cleared shots that were goalbound. At the other end, Pike missed with a free header from a set piece after 53 minutes and Josh Cooper did likewise 20 minutes later.

With three minutes of normal time, Hendon finally pulled a goal back. Ake picked up the ball 10 yards outside the Potters Bar penalty area, danced past two defenders, rode a clumsy challenge near the penalty spot, regained his balance and drove a shot past Wilson.

It was not enough for Hendon, who continued to press but could not get the reward their enterprise in the second half deserved.

"It took us until half-time to recover from those two early goals," said manager Gary McCann. "We worked hard but didn't get any reward until the final few minutes. But there is still plenty of work to do. We had a couple of players absent today and we missed them."