Hendon put behind them the horror-show of a second half at Harrow Borough five days earlier to revive their push for the Ryman League Premier Division play-offs with a superb 1-0 victory at the Imber Court home of Metropolitan Police. It was a solid all-round performance with all 13 players contributing to the cause.

Frank Sinclair's departure to Colwyn Bay - much closer to his Bolton home - meant there was one enforced change to the team from the New Year fixtures, but there was a complete reshuffling of the defence. James Parker and Ryan Wharton were dropped to the substitutes’ bench, replaced by James Archer and James Fisher.

Also coming into the side was debutant Lewis Hunt, while Michael Lewis made his first Hendon start and Kevin Maclaren came into midfield. Greg Ngoyi was the unfortunate player to miss out.

The strains of The Clash's "I fought the Law and the Law won" - the melody which greets the teams at Imber Court - had barely died down when Hendon forced their first two corners. The second of these was just about cleared, but it was a clear early warning to the Met Police that Hendon meant business.

In the eighth minute, a long clearance caught out Duran Reynolds and Elliott Charles was able to muscle his way in front of him. By the time he had brought the ball under control, he was inside the penalty area. With Jamie Butler coming off his line, Charles shot low and the goalkeeper made a fine block with his legs.

A minute later, at the other end a good cross from Craig Brown picked out Stafforde Palmer, unmarked eight yards out. His header, however, went wastefully high and wide of the target. It was a very bad miss and it proved very costly a few minutes later.

Another Hendon corner on the left side after 13 minutes was only partially cleared. The ball came to Darren Currie, who immediately cut inside and ran along the edge of the penalty area, looking for a chance to shoot, his angle for a cross having disappeared.

After beating two or three defenders the shooting chance presented itself and Currie took full advantage. His left-foot drive beat Butler all ends up and the goalkeeper knew he was beaten almost as soon as the ball was struck and arrowed just inside the far post.

In the 19th minute Charles had another chance to get on the scoresheet. He again found himself with only Butler to beat, but this time the goalkeeper was quicker to cut down the angle and the bouncing ball made a lob the more obvious strike for the forward. Charles got his foot under the ball well, but he could not control the power and he lifted the ball high over the crossbar.

In the 20th minute, the Police were awarded a free-kick 25 yards from the Hendon goal, 10 yards to the left of the near post. Ty Smith, whose stunning free-kick had equalised Hendon's early goal in reverse fixture at Vale Farm, again took the kick. This time, however, his radar was horribly out, slicing the ball as he overhit it.

Hendon resumed play with a throw-in eight yards from the goal-line. It would not be unfair to say that Smith missed the target by 45 yards from 25 yards out!

From the next Hendon corner, the ball was again only half-cleared and Hunt drove a 25-yard shot that Butler was very grateful to see flash a couple of feet wide of his far post. Had the ball been going just inside that far upright, the goalkeeper would have been left without a chance.

Six minutes before half-time, another teasing cross Brown was just too high for Steve Sutherland, who was well shepherded by Fisher, though from some angles it looked as if the striker had been nudged in the back.

The fact that Hendon's second half performance was almost as good as the first half one was something to celebrate for their fans because putting together two good halves has been a problem for the Greens of late.

Five minutes into the half, Charles had his third good chance of the match. A short pass from Elliott Godfrey and a clever turn split apart the Police defence and Charles suddenly had a half-open goal to aim at. Unfortunately for him, Charles's strike was hurried and he scuffed the ball wide of the near post, watched by a grateful Butler.

Dave Diedhiou continued to cause problems down the right side, but the match was dominated by the Hendon midfield where Currie, Godfrey and Maclaren were outstanding. The Greens sorely missed the latter's ability to break up play in the last two matches and his workrate was outstanding.

Mu Maan, who had been linking up well with Brown down the Blues right flank was replaced just before the hour, with Eddie Smith replacing him. The substitute gave the Police a few more options and they began to exert a little more pressure on the Hendon defence, which remained steadfast, with Berkley Laurencin almost immaculate behind them.

Before the game, the goalkeeper - whose form had been a little patchy over the Christmas period - took a number of low-bouncing, ground shots as part of his warm-up ritual. It proved to be very useful, because he faced three such shots from blue-shirted players in the second half, and he dealt with all of them faultlessly.

He was nearly beaten by a speculative drive from Reynolds, but the ball was always off target. Reynolds once again looked to be better going forward than in defence and he was indebted to Jay Lovett and Butler on a couple of occasions as he failed to deal with Charles and Lewis attacking him.

Charles remained at the centre of the action in the 75th minute, 60 seconds after Ngoyi had replaced Lewis and the Police had taken off Sam Hurrell in favour of Carl Wilson-Denis. The Grenadian international attempted to deflect a goalbound Hendon header away from a defender covering on the line, but succeeded not only in effecting a superb clearance but also in crashing into the upright.

Although he was able to continue for a minute after receiving treatment, he soon left the pitch and Hendon reshuffled their troops with Wharton replacing him. Ngoyi was, effectively left as a lone striker, with Godfrey as his closest supporter.

Met Police's best chance of an equaliser came in the next few moments. A shot from Palmer was missing the target but it struck the heel of Fisher and bounced into the path of Eddie Smith. His strike beat Laurencin, but not the covering Diedhiou, who was able to bundle the ball away for a corner kick.

With seven minutes of normal time remaining, Taylor was caught by a stumbling Ngoyi, who rather fell backwards into the full-back. Ngoyi could not have even seen him as he went for the ball, but the Police were awarded the free-kick and there was no further sanction for the Hendon player.

Taylor, however, went off and he was replaced by Ron Edwards. Although the Blues had much of the ball, they still had to be wary of Hendon breaking out of defence and, in the 89th minute, Edwards made a clean, telling tackle to stop Currie as he raided down the left wing.

In stoppage time, Hendon found themselves hemmed into the corner by over-eager Police defenders. Diedhiou was trying to find one of the supporting Godfrey, Maclaren or Archer, but found himself unable to get the ball away. This wasted a good 30 seconds of time.

There were five minutes of added time for Hendon to endure, but the Police had rather run out of ideas and the plethora of crosses which bombarded the Greens penalty area were comfortably gathered by the commanding Laurencin.

Assistant manager Freddie Hyatt said, "I think we deserved to win today. Overall the decision to leave out the players was the right one. The midfield trio of Maclaren, Godfrey and Currie won us the game, but across the board, there wasn't a player who didn’t put in a good shift."

His thoughts were echoed by Greens boss Gary McCann, who said, "It was a very difficult week for the team and I had some hard words after last Monday. I explained to the players why I was making the changes and Greg Ngoyi was desperately unlucky not to get the start, but we changed how we set up.

"I thought we got a really honest response from the players, especially after the performances just before and after Christmas. We were excellent and deservedly beat a very good team."