A totally inept refereeing performance from the Hawks Manager left West with no chance despite some good spells.  Things started badly when Harpenden opened the scoring in the first minute, and although the through ball was good, it was possibly offside but the striker made no mistake.  However West started to battle and both Jamie Heaffey and Tom Weaver in the centre of midfield started to dominate and set up some good passing moves.  Jamie was rewarded when beating several players his through ball found Chris Welch who finished well. 

Carl Biggs, who also had a good game on the left of midfield, then made an excellent run down the wing and a great cross was buried by Scott Howlett.  West continued the pressure and an excellent ball heading over the heads of the Hawks defenders into the box was handled away from above the defenders head on the edge of the box, but neither the ref or linesman saw it although every spectator did! 

West again pressured and a lovely shot, which was heading into the back of the net, was again handled away by a Hawks defender, again unseen by ref or linesman.  This was made far worse when the clearance ended up the field and led to a goal, leaving West 3-2 down instead of ahead.  The ref then blew 5 minutes early for half time!! 

West were clearly finding the injustice hard to deal with but started the second half well but some excellent goalkeeping denied them on at least 3 occasions and Carl was really unlucky to hit the cross bar.  Scott was brought down in the box after being towed down the field but of course no penalty, not even a free kick, and numerous other Hawks fouls went unpunished.  West did try and push forward and get back in the game but they conceded 3 more, and it was very difficult to keep the momentum going in the face of such poor refereeing.