National League rivals Barnet and Wealdstone experienced contrasting fortunes ahead of their derby at Grosvenor Vale on Saturday (5.30pm).

The Bees ran out 3-1 winners over Braintree on Saturday while the Stones grabbed a late equaliser to draw 2-2 at Forest Green Rovers.

After Dean Brennan’s passionate outcry to supporters last week, the Barnet boss was under pressure to deliver a victory at the Hive, but a turgid performance on the day gave the Irishman cause for concern.

“I thought it was our worst performance of the season,” he told the club’s website.

“Full credit to the opposition. They made it difficult for us. They tried to press, and I thought our sloppiness around the goal in the first half was unacceptable. Just not good enough.

"We’re missing open goals. We missed two open goals in the first half where we should be out of sight. Fair play to big John (Akinde). He’s rolled Ade (Oluwo) on a turn of foot. We spoke about not getting rolled by John because that’s what he likes to do, and he’s finished it really well.

"So, to start the way we started was really sloppy, especially after giving Ade the detail.

“I thought our reaction was very good. But in the first half we should be four goals in front. Inih (Effiong) has an unbelievable opportunity for them from the second phase of a corner. There’s just no easy games in this division. None whatsoever.

"I just thought our mentality and our sloppiness from certain players was really poor.”

Despite going 1-0 down inside a minute, Barnet rallied to turn the game on its head inside 15 minutes.

“The reaction is always good. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Brennan added.

“The day the lads don’t react is the day I get sacked. That’s how it works, so my job it to keep getting a tune out of them.

"The one thing my teams have always done since I’ve been here is work hard. They ran hard again, we showed lots of endeavour, but we’ve just got to be a little bit cuter, a little bit smarter and use our football intelligence to pick teams like that off. I just don’t think we did that well enough.”

Meanwhile, Wealdstone manager Matt Taylor praised his side’s character to recover from two goals down and snatch a point at the death at Forest Green Rovers, but the match was marred by a bad injury to goalkeeper Archie Matthews.

“We started the game and I was fearing the worst after 10 or 12 minutes we were 2-0 down,” he told the club media.

“Both avoidable (goals) from our perspective. Then Archie ends up dislocating his shoulder and I’m thinking ‘wow!’

"That eight-minute break gave me chance to get the players in and just explain to them. We hadn’t started yet and I thought from that moment on we were excellent.

"We moved the ball at such an intensity. Granted, it’s on a lovely pitch, but our players took risks. They took responsibility. They were, in my opinion, better than the opposition in terms of the way they moved the ball.

“I’m pleased we got that goal and Callum (McFarlane) got his just rewards from all his hard work, and then we went in at half time and all I asked of the players was to continue believing.

"I’m coming off the pitch and the supporters can sense it. They can feel that we were the team that was on top. We’ve come away to arguably a team with the biggest budget in the league and dominated the ball.

“This has to be the start of us really picking up points. What we got, with the goal at the end, was what we deserved. We had a goal ruled out for offside, but in that moment I didn’t think it was offside. I’d have been disappointed if we didn’t come away with a point, but the only reason I’d be disappointed was because of our performance.”