Hendon made it five Ryman League Premier Division wins in six matches as they completed a quick-fire double over relegation-haunted Carshalton Athletic at the War Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The match survived an early-morning inspection and the Greens - clad in their third strip yellow and black took full toll.

The team was almost unchanged from the one which had beaten Croydon in the London Senior Cup in midweek, only Berkley Laurencin replacing Sean Thomas in goal and Jack Connors taking over from Dave Diedhiou, who dropped to a bench bolstered by the return of both Belal Aite-Ouakrim and Isaiah Rankin.

The match had a dramatic start as Luke Nolan tackled Junior Morias in the opening 30 seconds and the Carshalton left-back needed treatment before being able to continue. A minute later, a misplaced defensive header from Justyn Roberts gave Sean Sonner a clear sight of goal, but the striker lifted the ball over both Nick Hamann and the crossbar.

In the fourth minute, Sonner ghosted past Pelayo Pico Gomes and reached the ball on the goalline, on the edge of the six-yard box. The defender startled to see the ball taken off him, appeared to bring down Sonner, but the referee penalised the striker for a push.

Nolan gave up the unequal battle in the eighth minute and he was replaced by Mark Goodman. The substitute, whose inability to keep a defensive line had been critical in Hendon's victory at Vale Farm in December, was again found wanting as a through ball released Lee Angol.

Hamann came off his line quickly, but Angol showed great poise in smacking the ball low into the corner to give Hendon a deserved lead. The Robins reacted to the goal by making more poor defensive decisions, but the Dons failed to punish them - at least for a dozen minutes.

With almost 20 minutes on the clock, Connors got round the back of the Carshalton defence. Michael Kamara attempted to block a cross, but Connors jinked one way and went the other before delivering a teasing, low ball into the middle.

Fastest to react was Sonner, whose flick from eight yards out struck both Roberts and Hamann, but neither could keep the ball out of the net.

Hendon's defending was not perfect, with Howard Hall twice gifting the ball to Carshalton forwards. The Robins' front men were almost as generous as their teammates at the back, because they didn't punish the Greens for their mistakes.

It was clear than neither team was defending anywhere near well enough for the 2-0 scoreline to stay that way for the last 70 minutes, but it was a matter of which attack took their chances better.

Morias tried to be too clever when offered a shooting position and had the ball taken off his feet. Angol then tried to beat four players instead of feeding the unmarked Connors - or the slightly less well-placed Sonner - and was stopped by the last of red-shirted quartet.

At the other, Ola Sogbanmu fired wastefully wide from a good position and Sean O'Toole rushed an effort and, as it sailed out of play nearer the corner flag than the goal, appealed for a corner. His runs down the left flank, however, were a source of concern for Hendon.

And the Greens paid for this in the final minute of the first. O'Toole ran into the penalty area and was up-ended. There were no protests from the Hendon team about the decision.

Nathaniel Pinney's angled run-up suggested he would shoot straight, towards the right post as he looked. It was a case of bluff and double-bluff, because Laurencin didn't fall for it. His dive to his right enabled him to get a solid contact on the ball, but not quite solid enough to deny Pinney the toe-hold back into the game for the second half.

Going downhill and with the bitterly cold wind at their backs, Carshalton players and fans had every expectation of wiping out the deficit and maybe winning the game into the bargain. However, they were in for a rude awakening as Elliott Brathwaite marshalled the back four superbly.

He and Flegg snuffed out any danger down the middle, while Hall quieted the danger from O'Toole and Scott Cousins easily got the better of Jerome Walker. In front of the four, Kevin Maclaren was his usual solid self, so Laurencin's only work in the whole of the second half, with one exception, was to deal with a few crosses and back-passes and take a few goal-kicks.

The exception came when he was left a little exposed by a short back-pass. The goalkeeper showed a deft body-swerve, however, and he watched Sogbanmu run harmlessly wide of him - without the ball - before clearing downfield.

When Hendon attacked, a great pass from Dean Cracknell released Angol. He really should have shot with only Hamann to beat, but decided to go around the goalkeeper. That part of the task was achieved without fuss, but he did leave himself too acute an angle to shoot, so he chipped the ball to beyond the back post, from where Morias headed the ball into the side-netting.

Fears that the squandered openings would come back to haunt the Greens were still there, but Carshalton lacked the ideas and penetration to punish Hendon. Surprisingly, they left it until the final eight minutes of normal time to make their second change, Sonny Ayres replacing Sogbanmu in a straight swap.

Hendon had already made one change, Casey Maclaren over from Sonner, who had worked tirelessly. Soon after Ayres' introduction, Aite-Ouakrim came on for Morias, giving the Robins a different problem to deal with.

Almost immediately, the striker strode through the middle, made himself a good opening and fired a shot which Hamann saved spectacularly at full stretch. It was the only on-target effort of what had been a fairly pedestrian second period - not that Hendon cared as it was incumbent on the trailing Robins to set the pace.

There was still time for Diedhiou to replace the tiring Angol, while Carshalton finally added to their strike force when Ryan Gardiner came on for Pico Gomez. The Robins' afternoon was summed up best when, in the dying seconds of stoppage time, they had a player cautioned for trying to stop Laurencin clearing the ball from his hands downfield.

"It was very important to get the win today," said a happy Hendon manager Gary McCann, who celebrated his eighth year in charge of the club.

"We really should have been comfortably ahead early on and if we had taken our chances, it would have been much easier in the second half. That said, I thought we defended very well and didn’t really give them a look in.

"That gives us five wins in six matches. It is something for us to build on. But I will have to be careful how I use the team as the squad is rather thin at the moment."