Hendon manager Gary McCann was a frustrated man when he talked about the game on the following day. "We played ever so well," he said.

"The defeat was very hard to digest. We gave them poor goals at poor times, two minutes into the first half and two minutes into the second half. And the passage of play leading up to the penalty was disappointing defensively. It looked a penalty from my angle.

"In the first half, it was as good as we have played and we could have been two or three goals up at half time. It looked like we tired a little in the last 20 minutes (a few of the players have not trained much recently), even though I thought we were still on top – only not quite as much.

"It is individual errors defensively that have cost us massively. We have to be better and eliminate them. But, all in all, I thought it was a very good performance."