Hayes & Yeading United 2-1 Wealdstone

Gordon Bartlett was left counting the cost of two killer blows as Hayes & Yeading ran out 2-1 winners against Wealdstone at York Road.

The Stones are second-from-bottom and without a league victory this season in the Conference South while United have made a positive start to the campaign.

Pat Cox won and scored an early penalty for the hosts after going down under Sean Cronin’s challenge off the ball in the opening few minutes of the derby.

The big, powerful striker was a nuisance all afternoon for H&Y, grabbing his second with a stunning header moments before the interval.

Scott McGleish, who saw a spectacular overhead-kick chalked off in the second-half, eventually pulled one back but it was not enough for the luckless Stones.

Boss Bartlett didn’t see the penalty incident as he was following the ball, however he has warned his side they can’t keep giving teams a head-start following promotion last season.

“The fella [Cox] was pushing and tugging throughout the whole game but I didn’t see it so I can’t pass judgement on it,” Barlett said of the penalty decision. “It definitely influenced the game though because I thought we were well on top at that stage.

“I thought we were well on top for most of the 90 minutes actually. Northy only had one shot to save at the end. They were hanging on for dear life at the end.

"There was two killer blows.

“The first was the penalty when the ball was nowhere near the incident so you’ve got to question that. We can’t do anything about that but what we shouldn’t have is Sean [Cronin] doing things in the box - that’s if he’s done something.

“And afterwards the second goal was poor. We should’ve done better. Territorially we had a lot of the ball but we were a bit pedestrian. Listen, we’ve lost again and what I don’t want is a defeatist attitude about the place.

“There’s room for improvement but there’s no need to hit the panic button. I was a little bit disappointed there wasn’t more time added on at the end but we’ve lost the game now and we need to bounce back quickly. There’s belief in the changing room and we haven’t been outplayed.

“What you can’t do in this league is give the opposition a chance. We did that today and in the end we’ve paid the price. They are far more clinical at this level. We’re nearly bottom of the league and there’s only one way and that’s up. We can turn this around very quickly. There’s no reason that doesn’t happen Tuesday.”

Hayes & Yeading manager Phil Babb was not in attendance at York Road and therefore unavailable for comment.