Hendon suffered a third straight defeat and fifth game without a win when they were beaten 3-0 by Bognor Regis Town at Nyewood Lane on Easter Monday. Make no mistake, the Greens had little chance of winning the game at the time, but the match was marred by a red card - and penalty - shown to debutant goalkeeper Danny McNicholas 15 minutes from full time.

The 17-year-old came in for Joe McDonnell, recalled by his parent club Basingstoke Town, while Jack Bennett, Casey Maclaren, James Fisher and Tony Taggart replaced Oliver Sprague, Sam Flegg, Elliott Brathwaite and Jose Figura.

Bognor and Hendon have the reputation for being the best passing teams in the Ryman League Premier Division and they proved the point in an intriguing if not particularly exciting match. There were six fouls committed in the first half - three by each side - and Hendon were the only offenders after the break, again being penalised on three occasions.

In the first half, the difference between the two teams was confidence. The Rocks are on a great run which has seen them rise to second place, whereas the Greens have fallen out of the playoff race following a disappointing run.

Both teams tried to fashion openings by probing for openings, but Bognor did it much better and their two first half goals were excellent in their own ways. Neither goalkeeper had been forced into any serious action in the opening quarter when the Rocks opened the scoring.

A move down the right flank ended with the ball at Ollie Pearce's feet. He went on a mazy run which took him past three players before fashioning a shooting opportunity. Taking careful aim, Pearce drilled the ball inside McNicholas's near post.

The second goal came eight minutes later and was the result of slick passing and a lethal finish. This move started in the middle of the pitch, was shifted to the left, then the right and when the ball came into the penalty area, a low cross was turned into the net by Terry Dodd, who had sneaked in front of his marker, from a few yards out.

Probably the only negative for Bognor in the first half came in the dying seconds of the period when former Portsmouth midfielder Sammy Igoe limped off with a hamstring injury, though the positive was the return after a long-term injury of Ben Johnson.

After being outplayed in the first half, Hendon came out for the second period in determined mood and took the game to Bognor. The Greens improved both their passing and forward movement to get into shooting positions.

In the first ten minutes of the half, both full-backs, Chris Seeby and Bennett came close to scoring with powerful drives, Bennett's narrowly missing the far post and Seeby's just clearing the crossbar. The Rocks then had to replace centre-back Dan Sackman with Stuart Axten.

One disappointing aspect of the Hendon play in the game was the failure to produce anything from set pieces. Michael Murray, Taggart and Max McCann all failed to find an orange shirt from corners, while another one was whistled dead for a foul by Dave Diedhiou.

Grant Smith was called into action on two occasions, producing excellent saves to keep out drives from Anthony Thomas and Lee O'Leary. If Hendon had found a way past the goalkeeper, maybe Bognor might have started to panic.

With 18 minutes to go, Hendon sent on Leon Smith and Scott Cousins for Murray and Taggart, hoping the two-man strike force would reduce the arrears. Those thoughts ended in just three minutes later.

McNicholas easily caught a ball into the penalty area and immediately tried to throw the ball out to the left side, where Bennett was in space. He couldn't do so because Pearce ran in and obstructed him.

However, the young keeper made the fatal error of raising a hand to push Pearce out of the way. The referee saw the offence and immediately poited to the penalty spot and then showed McNicholas a red card. Whilst in the laws of the game the decision was entirely correct, the general feeling around the ground was that it was a harsh decision. O'Leary was cautioned for his continued protests before the spot kick.

Casey Maclaren took over in goal and and his first task was to face the spot-kick. Johnson stepped up and drilled the ball into the bottom corner, giving Maclaren no chance - but few, if any, keepers would have had a hope of making a save.

That goal forced Hendon to reshuffle and, after a couple of minutes, Sam Flegg came on for Thomas to shore up a defence which was in danger of being over-run. Maclaren caught a couple of crosses and also pushed a shot from the third Bognor substitute, Dan Thompson, away for a corner. From the corner, McCann kept the score down with a superb goalline clearance, heading the ball away from under the crossbar.