Hendon produced their worst home performance for many years in subsiding to an embarrassing 5-0 defeat against relegation threatened Carshalton Athletic. With just five points from five games since the 11-goal romp at Leyton, maybe the wheels have come off the Hendon title challenge - certainly the home form has not been championship caliber with three points gained and just one goal scored in four outings since the beginning of December.

Wayne O'Sullivan and Scott Shulton returned to the Greens' starting line-up in place of Jamie Busby and Rakatahr Hudson, the latter trying to shake off the after-effects of a brief bout of flu. The Robins included recently departed Rob Ursell.

Neither goalkeeper was called into the action in the opening dozen or so minutes, Lubomir Guentchev firing a free-kick high and wide of the target from 22 yards after he had been knocked over, and a Brian Haule cross eluding the few green shirts in the penalty area.

Almost immediately, Carshalton broke downfield and when the ball came to Ursell, he jinked one way, went the other and lifted a shot past Richard Wilmot. He was very unlucky to see the ball come of the crossbar and it was cleared hurriedly by a Hendon defender.

The Robins grew in confidence as Hendon became seriously disjointed, the defence failing to deal with the threat out wide from Jack MacLeod and Michael Johnson. Visiting officials were not surprised to see their team playing such enterprising football, nor were they surprised to see chances go begging for that - plus an alarming tendency to tire dramatically in the second half - has been their biggest downfall this season, the reason why they are in a relegation dogfight.

But Hendon's biggest failing was in midfield where the mixture just did not gel. Two ball-winners and two ball-playing youngsters meant the midfield battle was easily won by Carshalton.

Richard Wilmot was much the busier goalkeeper, making two saves to keep the scores level. He was also forced into a couple of last-ditch clearances as Ursell and Phil Ruggles led Marc Leach and Sam Page a merry dance. The goalkeeper was nearly undone by a back-pass and, after he had taken a touch to control the ball, he could have been dispossessed and when the mishit clearance was returned to their box, Hendon were lucky to escape when the goalkeeper saved Ruggles' close-range shot at the second attempt.

Dean Carpenter and Tony Quinton both narrowly missed the target from the edge of the box and the Ursell-Ruggles combination was denied the opener on 31 minutes by a goalline clearance from Page.

It delayed the inevitable only five minutes. The Hendon defence was missing in action as MacLeod ran down the right wing with Simon Cooper assisting. When the ball came into the penalty area, Quinton lost whatever marking had been assigned to him and he had all the time in the world to pick his spot.

Hendon should have equalised almost immediately when Haule for once got the better of Liam Harwood and cut in from the right wing. His inch-perfect pass across the six-yard box should have been converted by Guentchev, but he got a call from O'Sullivan and he left the ball. It was a poor decision because before O'Sullivan could touch the ball James Evans had made a brilliant intervention.

From the corner, Carpenter made a headed clearance from his goalline to again deny O'Sullivan, who still found the target with his off-balance shot from a narrow angle.

Seething at the poor first-half performance, Hendon's management team sent out the players early for the second half, but made two changes, removing James Burgess and Shulton and replacing them with Busby and Hudson.

The pair had not had a chance to make an impression when Hendon wasted their best chance of the afternoon. A long ball out of defence deceived Simon Cooper and he allowed the ball to bounce over him and into the path of O'Sullivan. He had time to control the ball and weigh up his options on a run towards goal, despite the advancing Aaron Howe. Instead, however, O'Sullivan went for a lob that beat the goalkeeper, but was a good four yards wide of the target.

It was a very poor miss but it was not as shocking as the defending produced by the home team in the next ten minutes. Carshalton scored three times in eight minutes before the hour mark, the first two coming on the counter-attack.

In the 51st minute, a promising Hendon attack was broken up when Casey Maclaren took a bad option and was dispossessed. The ball was quickly fed from the left edge of the Carshalton penalty area to the right wing. No defender was close to MacLeod as he controlled the ball and fired past Wilmot.

Two minutes later, from a Hendon corner, the ball was one at the near post. James Parker was beaten to the loose ball on the right edge of the Robins box and the ball was quickly ferried out to Johnson on the opposite flank. Two defenders went over to cover the wide-man's run, but they left the middle of the field unmanned. When the ball came into the middle of the box, MacLeod helped himself to another goal.

Although Hendon have not actually recovered all of a three-goal deficit, they have come close on a number of occasions, so for all the paucity of performance, this wasn't game over. That came six minutes later when Wilmot was again left hopelessly exposed and beaten.

In 2002, Ruggles came to Hendon on loan from Woking. The Conference National team were determined not to lose him as they considered him a genuine prospect. However, after two months at Claremont Road and a spell at Leatherhead, the Cardinals gave up on him. Since then Ruggles has played for almost every club on the London-Surrey border without looking like the player his potential suggested.

On the evidence of his performance on this day, however, there is a chance that something has "clicked" with him, because he was a constant threat leading the line. Ruggles scored the goal his performance deserved, a simple finish against more woeful defending.

Hendon made their final change, Davis Haule replacing Guentchev, while Carshalton made their first substitution, Evans being replaced by Ryan Watts. Even with what may well be Hendon's best available midfield, they were unable to make an impression on a Carshalton team hungry for more goals. The inevitable came in the 73rd minute when Johnson turned and shot the ball low across Wilmot into the bottom corner.

At this point Carshalton removed their destroyers-in-chief, Ursell and Ruggles, the former receiving a handshake and hug from his former manager before he reached his own bench. It is a huge shame that this talented ball-player's career has been blighted by knee injuries.

There were no more goals, but this was mainly because of another clearance off the line by a green-shirted defender and an assistant referee's flag ruling out a sixth Carshalton after the original effort had come off a post.

There was also time for Maclaren to pick up a yellow card for a challenge born out of total frustration on an afternoon where nothing went right for Hendon and they took a deserved beating.

"This was a shocking performance," admitted manager Gary McCann. "There wasn't one Hendon player, from 1 to 11, who was better than his opposite number today."