Hendon returned home from Wiltshire pointless following their 2-1 defeat by Salisbury City at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Salisbury were forced onto the back foot during the opening quarter and the division's second most leaky defence entering Saturday was left creaking on a number of occasions. However, they managed to escape without conceding, although Eugene Ofori was exceptionally unlucky with a drive that curled at the last moment and struck a post. Had it gone straight, the unsighted Kevin Sawyer would have been well beaten.

In the 25th minute, Ofori tried his luck with a speculative 40-yard lob which Sawyer did well to gather a yard before the ball would have dropped under the crossbar after being caught off his line.

Two minutes later Hendon went behind to a fine counter-attack. Mark Nicholls took the ball across the edge of the penalty area "D" while looking for an open teammate. Aaron Cook tackled Nicholls who went to ground as Cook won the ball.

Cook's intervention may have been a foul - he played both man and ball - but it set up Robbie Matthews, who went on a 70-yard down the left wing. Matthews' cross was inch-perfect and Adam Wallace delivered the coup de grace with a neat header past Dave King.

It took a while for Hendon to recover from the blow, but the Greens gradually re-exerted control. Danny Julienne's control and dribbling didn't quite match his distribution while Ross Pickett struggled to escape the attentions of Josh Thomas.

In the 44th minute, Richard McDonagh was brought down five yards outside the Whites' box. Nicholls tried to take a quick free-kick, but was prevented from doing so. Instead, after Sawyer had carefully organised a five-man wall, Dave Sargent discovered a major design fault as he curled the ball just inside the post being guarded by the wall.

Equality lasted less than 60 seconds. Danny Butler lost the ball just outside his box and Wallace attacked. Dave Nolan came in and timed his tackle superbly, at least in the eyes of most of the 498 in attendance. The assistant referee gave a corner, while the referee, without consulting his much closer colleague, awarded a penalty, which Wallace duly converted.

Thirty seconds later, Julienne was pulled down on the edge of the Salisbury penalty area and this time the referee consulted the assistant before giving a direct free-kick. It came to nothing.

Salisbury had the better of the first 25 minutes of the second half but, apart from a 71st minute Matthew Tubbs drive that cannoned off the top of the crossbar, failed to trouble King. Gary Meakin, cautioned for a foul after 47 minutes was rarely forced into making a risky tackle when one slip might have proved disastrous.

Demetrious and Frendo replaced, McDonagh and Ofori, respectively, for the final quarter and Hendon began to get back into the game. But luck certainly wasn't on Hendon's side. Two or three half-chances were cleared more by luck than judgement and Frendo was desperately unfortunate to see his crafty chip bounce off the underside of the crossbar before being hacked away to safety.

"The penalty was a kick in the teeth," said a downcast Gary Farrell. "I don't think we played that badly, but luck was against us. We passed the ball quite well and created a number of chances but the ball wouldn't go in for us."