HAVING made such an impressive start to the campaign it is hard to understand how Worcester City were not even second best to an ordinary Hayes and Yeading United side.

From start to finish, the St George’s Lane outfit put on a display that manager Richard Dryden described afterwards as “one of the worst in my time here”.

Maybe the expectations at City had been raised from their opening two victories, but this is the start of the campaign and with those wins fans are allowed to dream.

The only thing was on Saturday this was a nightmare — worryingly it could have been even worse.

Hayes won’t be the best side that Worcester will face this season, in fact they were a pretty average outfit.

They were just made to look slightly better than they actually are.

And that will have been the most worrying thing for Dryden. Defeat to a side who are simply better than you is not nice but it’s a situation that can be accepted.

But everyone knows City are a better team than how they looked on Saturday so, when the boos came at the end of the first-half and when the final whistle went, it was no surprise.

City got off to the worst possible start when Esmond James was left unmarked to pounce on William Hendry’s saved shot but, luckily for the hosts, the assistant referee came to the rescue as he raised his flag for offside.

That should have been all the warning that Worcester needed — but it was more of a sign of things to come.

After that fourth-minute let-off, City were trailing two minutes later.

Hendry was left in so much space on the edge of the Worcester area he had time to pick his spot, drilling the ball past Danny McDonnell who could do nothing but watch the ball nestle in the back of the net.

Hayes kept coming at City with James and Josh Scott carving their way through a non-existent Worcester midfield.

The visitors’ direct approach reaped another reward mid-way through the half as Norwegian Ram Mawra burst into the area only for McDonnell to upend the midfielder.

With no option but to point to the spot, referee Matt Foley kept his cards in his pocket for the majority of the match and McDonnell was given nothing more than a slight talking too before Scott fired the spot-kick beyond the City custodian.

Surely now Worcester would show some fight? But no. They had no idea how to figure out this Hayes side. The visitors, having been first to everything, made City wait to start the second-half.

Slow at coming on to the pitch before a pre-half huddle just made the wait for more misery even more frustrating.

And City knew that it wasn’t going to be their day when Neil Martin kicked out at skipper Craig Wilding.

The Hayes defender only got a talking too, while that was the most anyone got to see of the returning Wilding.

The skipper, making his comeback after suspension, was placed out on the wing and, for the majority of the game, it was like he wasn’t even there. And, 10 minutes into the second-half, he wasn’t as Dryden sent on Troy Wood.

The City chief tried to shake things up further in the 69th minute as the awkward Jemiah Richards was ordered into action in place of Matt Dinsmore.

But, as the new plans were still being digested, Scott Fitzgerald found himself some room to fire home the final nail in the City coffin.

Thankfully for Worcester, nothing is decided in August and they will be hoping they have got this bad performance out of their system for the trip to Weston-super-Mare on Saturday.