Hendon's long midweek trip to Lowestoft Town proved to be a fruitless one on Tuesday as they were beaten 2-0, a result that sent the Trawlerboys to the top of the Ryman League Premier Division.

The Greens' preparations were disrupted by the unavailability of Sean Thomas and James Parker, together with an injury picked up by James Archer during the warm up - which resulted in a late change to the starting line-up.

These changes meant that Lowestoft were able to take advantage of a slightly makeshift Hendon defence, and Chris Henderson gave Dave Diedhiou a torrid time throughout the first period.

Henderson felt that he should have won a penalty in the 11th minute when he appeared to be fouled by Diedhiou, but the referee waved the appeals away.

Berkley Laurencin, restored to the number 1 shirt in the absence of Thomas, made a smart save to avoid an own goal when Ryan Wharton inadvertently diverted a Henderson cross towards goal.

The deadlock was broken in the 25th minute when Matt Nolan scored with a superb 25 yard strike that simply flew into the bottom corner. Laurencin had no chance of getting to the ball.

Shortly after the goal, Hendon had their first decent chance when Mauro Vilhete took advantage of an error by a Lowestoft defender, but his effort on goal was easily beaten away to safety by Joe Reynolds.

However, Lowestoft were very much the better side, and their due reward came in the 36th minute when Henderson was fouled in the box by Diedhiou, and this time the referee did award the penalty. Dale Crockrill stepped up and converted the spot kick.

The second half was short on chances, although the Greens did have the bulk of possession. Lowestoft were fortunate not to be reduced to ten men late on when a defender brought down Belal Aite-Ouakrim when he was through on goal, but the referee only showed a yellow card.

Hendon did have two very good late chances, but were unable to convert either of them.

"Lowestoft is a very hard place to go to, especially in midweek," said Gary Mccann, "and they are a very hard team to beat. We were far from embarrassed and if we had taken either of the two great chances we created towards the end of the second half, I think we might have got something from the game. They were certainly rattled at that stage.

"I thought we did OK, but we again had to face adversity. We knew that James Park and Sean Thomas were unavailable and Elliott Charles failed a Monday fitness test, so we had to make a number of changes to Saturday's winning team. But then we lost James Archer in the warm-up and this forced us to reshuffle the team just before kick-off."