Hendon produced what was far and away their poorest performance of the season, but they lived to fight another day in the FA Cup. The 1-1 draw at home to Aveley did not reflect the Greens' second-half domination, but at half-time, that situation was entirely deserved by the Millers.

The Greens made three changes to the starting line-up but the reshuffle didn't seem to have an effect on Hendon in the opening quarter of the game. Indeed after just four minutes, the Greens had the lead.

A free-kick was knocked into the penalty area. Two boots made contact with the ball, which somehow found its way beyond the back post. Waiting there was O'Sullivan, who took a touch before slotting the ball past Ronnie Worster.

After 15 minutes, O'Sullivan should have scored again when he was clean through on Worster. This time it was the goalkeeper who won the challenge and his save almost certainly turned the match.

Had they gone 2-0 down inside 15 minutes, the game probably would have been all over for Aveley. Instead, they took heart from the escape and started to cause a few problems of their own. Ryan Imbert, Jarreau McCarthy and Jay Leader all tried their luck with shots, but they were all far too close to Richard Wilmot to cause the goalkeeper any inconvenience.

Then, in the 42nd minute, Aveley got a deserved equaliser, even if there was more than a hint of fortune. Leader tried his luck with a 40-yard shot that he tried to loop over Wilmot. The goalkeeper back-pedalled desperately but could not prevent the ball bouncing off the crossbar. No defender reacted to the situation so, as Wilmot tried to extricate himself from the goalnetting, there was no one to stop Ryan Imbert rolling the rebound into the net.

In the second half, Hendon wasted an incredible amount of possession, but didn't pay for it. The Aveley attack rarely looked like getting a second goal, only a ricochet of a defender's heel required a save by Wilmot.

However, at the other end, the forwards rarely looked like scoring from open play. Much of the blame for this has to go to the providers, because the direction of the final ball into the danger area was almost invariably the wrong one.

It was a different matter with set pieces, The biggest dangerman from these was Marc Leach, who spurned two golden opportunities to score and was denied by the crossbar too.

His header after 56 minutes, came off the crossbar and when the rebound was cleared to him, instead of placing the ball in a big gap by the left upright, he went for a blast and cleared the crossbar.

And, late in the game, Worster collided with a defender in dealing with a cross bute Leach didn't get enough power or good direction on a 12-yard header, allowing Tom Pepper to head the ball off the goal line.

Casey Maclaren had a good chance with another header, but he failed to hit the target, while desperate defending saw defenders throw themselves in front of the ball to block goalbound shots. Other players to miss the target with shots included Jamie Busby, Davis Haule, Brian Haule, James Parker and Green.

“We never really got started,” said manager Gary McCann, “despite the early goal. It looked as if the team was suffering a reaction to the effort of the first seven games.”

(Report by David Ballheimer - not to be reproduced without permission from the author)