It may not have been the result he was after, but Halstead Town manager Mark Benterman hailed his team’s performance in their 2-1 defeat at Saffron Walden Town as among the finest he had seen in his time at the club.

Halstead know a push for Thurlow Nunn League division one promotion is realistically beyond them this season, so Benterman and his staff and players are building for a push next year and they were keen to see how they fared against one of the current front-runners.

They had held the Bloods to a 2-2 draw at Rosemary Lane a few weeks before, but their performance in the return clash on Tuesday left Benterman genuinely enthused about their prospects for the future.

He said: “It was probably the best performance in the two years that I’ve been here.

“We smashed them, but we just didn’t get the rewards that we deserved.

“Even the Saffron Walden fans said that we deserved more.

“It was fantastic.

“We were disappointed to be 2-0 down at half-time, but they were hanging on at the end.

“Tom Cook got us back in the game with a cracking shot from 25 yards that flew into the top corner and we went for it, but their keeper made two great saves and a couple more were just off target. We had eight players out there who were under-23 and six were from our own youth policy set-up.

“I could not have been prouder as a manager.

“Overall, we were happy with the performance and it felt like a win because of what we had seen, but it’s just a shame that we didn’t get what we deserved in terms of points.”

Halstead continue with a trip to King’s Lynn Town Reserves today, before a Tolleshunt D’Arcy Cup quarter-final clash against Heybridge Swifts at Rosemary Lane on Tuesday.