Hendon bounced back from the disappointment of Saturday's defeat at one bogey team, Tonbridge Angels, to put another of the bogeymen to the sword. Heroes - well there were 14 of them, but pride of place should probably go to Niko Muir, whose hat-trick provided all the goals in Tuesday night's 3-0 defeat of Enfield Town at Silver Jubilee Park.

The Greens made one change from the team which lost narrowly in Kent, Daniel Uchechi coming into the squad and replacing Reis Stanislaus in starting line-up, with the latter dropping to the bench. Ashley Nathaniel-George was the one to drop out of the matchday 16.

The Greens made a bright start, but so did the Towners and a good block by Rian Bray denied Sam Youngs after six minutes, whose powerful drive cannoned away to safety. Within a minute, Hendon had taken the lead.

Muir received the ball just outside the penalty area and passed to Uchechi before turning to run behind his marker. The ball back from Uchechi was perfectly timed and weighted to allow Muir to remain onside as he regained possession and he slid the ball past the hopelessly exposed Joe Wright.

It was the perfect start for Hendon and it gave them huge confidence. The passing all over the field was slick, with Keagan Cole, Uchechi and Matt Ball all linking well and giving Zak Joseph and Muir plenty of company in forward positions.

The two full-backs, Jake Eggleton and Sam Murphy were willing runners and their positional sense and tackling ability denied Enfield anything of note out wide. Bray and Arthur Lee have played only twice together now but their understanding is excellent and with Luke Tingey calm in front of them and Tom Lovelock a solid goalkeeping presence, for all of Enfield's possession, they had no end product.

Hendon's attacking options gave the Towners fits and they were frequently fully stretched as the Greens raided from all angles. After 19 minutes, the defence was breached again.

It was a bit of a ping-pong affair as Muir and Uchechi had shots, one of which was well saved by Wright. However, the second rebound fell to Muir and he wasted no time in finding the bottom corner.

In the 28th minute, Cole was denied by a superb low save from Wright, but was very disappointed that a goal-kick was awarded, instead of a corner. In fact, over the opening 45 minutes, Enfield won the corner count 3-2, but that was pretty much the only statistic they dominated.

One disappointment for Hendon was an injury to Luke Tingey, who required lengthy treatment before returning to the action with his wrist bandaged. He lasted till half-time, at which point he was replaced by Dave Diedhiou and went off to hospital, where a broken wrist was diagnosed and he was due to undergo surgery on Wednesday afternoon.

Enfield had come more into the game as the first half proceeded, but Lovelock was rarely forced into any action. Six minutes into the second half, however, Lovelock made a heroic intervention.

Slick interplay between Ryan Blackman and Ryan Blake saw the latter dart into the danger area. He caught Lee unawares and was tripped by the Greens skipper to earn a penalty. Drew Roberts stepped up, fired the ball towards the bottom corner, but it was pushed aside superbly by Lovelock, who was then quick enough to dive on the loose ball.

It was a turning point, because, within five minutes, Hendon's lead was three goals. Uchechi was caught offside but remained alert as the free-kick was hit towards Micky Parcell.

The ball didn't reach the Towners' skipper because Uchechi intercepted it. He then linked up with Murphy and Cole before the ball fell to Muir, who completed his hat-trick from just inside the penalty area.

Almost immediately, Simon Thomas and Steve Wales replaced Jack Higgs and Ralston Gabriel for Enfield as they chased the game. A fine strike from Youngs did hit the foot of a Hendon post, but Thomas knocked the rebound wide with a hurried shot.

At the other end, Wright made half a dozen excellent saves to keep the score down to three. Stanislaus (for Ball) and Ibe (for Muir) were the other two Hendon substitutes to see action and both made good contributions in their own ways.

Late on, both teams had what seemed valid penalty appeals turned away, but by this time the game had gone long beyond Enfield's reach.