MARK Barnham was still reeling today after what he termed ‘30 minutes of disaster’ for Northwood last night.
The Woods manager watched helplessly as his side conceded a second goal just before the hour to visitors Marlow - and then simply fall apart.
The debacle led to a 45 minute post mortem in the dressing room.
He said: "The defenders just stopped marking after the second goal and it’s hard to explain why.
“We’d rested John (Sonuga) as a result of goals given away earlier in the season. We brought him back last night and I think three or four of their goals came from that source again."
The warning signs were there from the off as Woods keeper Mitch Swain denied Jermaine Roche on three separate occasions.
However, the goal duly arrived 10 minutes before the break as man-of-the-match Jon Case crossed for Roche to head inside the near post.
Another Swain save kept 1-0 at the break and Woods enjoyed their best spell immediately afterwards, almost drawing level when good interplay between Aaron Cato (pictured) and john Christian saw the latter’s shot well saved by Michael Watkins.
The ball dropped to Leon Osei, but he fired over from eight yards and within three minutes it was 2-0 as Daniel Stone was allowed a free header from a left-wing corner.
It was the cue for the sky to fall in.
Mason struck number three from the spot after Josh Urquhart handled, and it was 4-0 when Aaron Couch came back from an offside position to play Roche in for his second on 71 minutes.
Substitute Wayne Jackson pulled one back with a chip, but Couch capitalized on another Sonuga error to lob over Swain for 5-1 with two minutes left.
And the hosts’ misery was complete in stoppage time when substitute Adam Harman was given the freedom of Northwood to head the sixth.
The loss completed a nightmare 72 hours for Woods coming on top of their 4-1 defeat at Daventry on Saturday.
But where Barnham could find reasons for Saturday’s result, he admitted there was no hiding place last night.
He added: "Saturday was an intimidation thing where a couple of things happened on the pitch which the referee didn’t counteract and it descended into a farce.
“But last night was about players and we let ourselves down."”
