Hendon crashed out of the London Senior Cup in the second round after being rushed off their feet by a Dulwich Hamlet team which was faster, smarter and more direct. The most disappointing aspect about the 3-1 defeat at Champion Hill on Monday night was the way that Dulwich were slicker and better passing the ball, despite being far short of their full first team and a number of Hendon players put in their worst performances of the season.

The Greens were close to full strength though, crucially new signing Rhys Paul - a dual registration with Maidenhead United - became the fifth different centre-back partner of James Fisher. With Scott Cousins unavailable Tony Taggart came in at left-back, while both Kevin Maclaren and Jefferson Louis returned to the starting line-up.

It must be said that Paul's debut was the stuff of nightmares. Inside the opening minute, a tentative clearance fell to Xavier Vidal, whose dipping shot lacked power and was caught by an alert Berkley Laurencin just under the crossbar.

Dulwich created two more half chances before they opened the scoring in the seventh minute. It was a simple goal, reminiscent of Hamlet's opening goal in the Ryman League in August.

A direct pass down the left allowed Marcel Henry-Francis to run at the Hendon defence. Paul was not close enough to stop Henry-Francis from turning and, having got clear, the striker drilled the ball past Laurencin.

Although Hamlet enjoyed most of the possession and created a few half-chances against the very jittery Hendon defence, the Dulwich defence showed little more solidity. They did get lucky on a few occasions when desperate clearances found blue shirts with orange shirts in close attendance and an intervention by Marc-Anthony Okoye easily could have been considered a back-pass, directly into the hands of Oshane Brown.

A couple of runs by Louis were halted by an assistant referee who was happy to flag for shirt-pulling by the striker, but not when he was the victim, much to his frustration. He did try his luck with a couple of shots from good positions, though on both occasions Aaron Morgan was better placed.

In the last 10 minutes of the half, Hendon had two big escapes. Paul was cautioned in the 35th minute for a crude challenge. The free kick by Vidal was almost perfect, but despite curling towards the goal and hitting the inside of the post, it rather defied the laws of physics by bouncing back into play.

Three minutes later Hamlet had the ball in the net after a knock-back beyond the far post, but the celebrations were stilled as the assistant referee's flag was raised - and had been when the original cross came into the penalty area.

Hendon were better in the second half, but that was not difficult. There was one phase of play when Dulwich held the ball for 90 seconds with, 30-40 passes all finding blue shirts with Dons players almost chasing shadows.

Twenty minutes into the second half, both teams made double changes, Hendon introducing Anthony Thomas and Michael Murray at the expense of Tony Taggart and Paul. A reshuffle saw Chris Seeby move into the middle of defence Dave Diedhiou to right back and Morgan to the unfamiliar role of left back.

The Greens had enjoyed a few openings, notably Diedhiou hitting the side-netting from a very good position. But, two minutes after the substitutions, Lee O'Leary collected an awful clearance from Brown and had no one near him.

When full of confidence, O'Leary would have scored without fuss. However, his run at goal was tentative and his effort lacked the power and direction to trouble the back-tracking Brown who caught the ball easily.

In the 75th minute, Hendon drew level in rather fortunate circumstances. A clearance by Laurencin was unconvincing at best, but it proved to be a perfect pass to O'Leary.

His ball split the defence and Thomas ran onto it. As Brown came off his line, Thomas curled a right-foot shot just inside the far post and, suddenly it was Hendon who became favourites to win.

That thought lasted a little more than two minutes as the Hendon defence didn't make a tackle around the penalty area and when the ball fell to Henry-Francis, he finished with ease.

Hendon should have equalised in the 81st minute when Carl McCluskey had a great chance, but Brown made a save that should have been much harder.

And, three minutes later, the match was over when substitute Ramell Lake, who had cleverly avoided a desperate lunge from Morgan in the build-up, scored with a beautiful curling shot.

Morgan was shown a red card in the last minute for a terrible challenge on Lake. Borne out of frustration at the way things had gone, there was no excuse for it and the fracas which followed was unsurprising, given it was directly in front of the dugouts.