Chalfont boss Danny Edwards was brutally honest in his assessment of his side’s display in a 3-0 defeat to local rivals Marlow on Saturday – labelling Saints’ performance as ‘awful’.

Goals from debutant Romone Rose and substitutes Nathan Ashton and Jamal Branker condemned the hosts to a third straight defeat – a run which has seen them concede six and fail to find the net.

Chalfont had been challenging for a play-off spot in Division One Central before their recent dip in form, and Edwards took no prisoners when discussing their recent defeats.

He said: “It was a fair reflection on the fact that we were awful. We’ve had one half in the last three performances that you can describe as half decent.

“The AFC Hayes game was awful from beginning to end, the first half at Potters Bar was worse and unfortunately I thought it couldn’t get any worse than the first half at Potters Bar but then I had to sit through watching the Marlow game on Saturday.

“I think saying the word awful was being polite to some of the performances in recent times.”

There was contrasting emotion in the away dugout at Mill Meadow as Marlow boss Mark Bartley was able to celebrate a first win in eight games.

The victory was the Blues’ first of 2015 and Bartley believes it was made even sweeter by the fact it came in a local derby.

“You want to do well against the local sides; that’s what it’s about,” he enthused. “Yes we want to do well in the league, but when you’re playing against the sides that are local to you a lot of the players know each other and it’s quite competitive.

“It’s good that we’ve been able to get a decent points haul against them this year. I felt that earlier in the season we probably should have beaten them at home, but we didn’t we drew.

“We’ve gone to their place on Saturday and done pretty well. They’re a good side and that makes it a bit better that we’ve been able to beat a good side 3-0 on their own patch.”

Bartley was also delighted with the impact of former QPR youngster Rose, who bagged the opener with a smartly taken finish after 32 minutes.

The 25-year-old joined the club after his release from Conference South outfit Staines Town, and the Marlow manager believes consistently good performances will help him climb back up the footballing ladder.

He said: “He had a couple of things on the table, and I know he wants to go back higher. I said to him ‘look, you can come to us, play games, get a little bit fitter and sharper and then as long as you do what we know you can do on the pitch then I think those opportunities will open up for you’.

“It’s great to have him on board and he certainly added something that was missing from us in attack on Saturday.”

Whilst things are looking up for Marlow, Edwards and his Chalfont squad will be working hard to ensure their good work over the first half of the campaign does not count for nothing.

The Saints manager did not plan to make anymore additions to his team but after watching three straight defeats has concluded that changes need to be made.

He said: “I can’t walk into my chairman and say I’m not going to do anything about what I saw on Saturday, it wasn’t good enough. We have to make changes.

“I don’t like doing that very often because I like to keep a settled squad throughout the season but it was obvious from Saturday that we have to make some changes and freshen things up a bit.”

He added: “It’s difficult to see an area of the team that you wouldn’t want to strengthen.”