HALSTEAD Town manager Mark McLean was glad to have a midweek buffer between an "awful" display at Hashtag United last weekend and his team's return home to face Newbury Forest on Saturday.

The Humbugs boss branded his side's performance at Hashtag as "dreadful from beginning to end" as they surrendered top spot in Thurlow Nunn League division one south to their hosts with a 2-1 defeat in their top-two clash.

Marcus Warren's early goal proved a brief highlight for Halstead and McLean knows they have to get the display and result out of their system quickly.

So he was pleased to have a system-cleansing friendly game against Haverhill Borough in midweek and, with their mojo back, McLean feels his players are ready to face Newbury Forest at the Milbank Stadium on Saturday (kick-off 3pm).

McLean said: "It was awful at Hashtag - we were dreadful from beginning to end.

"We managed to nick a goal to get in front, but we were very much hanging on at the end and it was bad as I have ever seen us.

"We did manage one spell when we had three excellent chances and had one or two of them gone in then it may have been different, but we looked well beaten once they got the equaliser.

"God knows where a performance like that came from.

"We know that Hashtag start games fast, as we do, and they play a similar system to us so we said to them that they just needed to be better man for man, but it just didn't happen.

"Maybe the fact that we have been having players coming back didn't help as in our starting line-up there were probably seven who you would say had not been long in coming back, whereas Hashtag had been able to put our pretty much the same team for the last four or five games.

"It was a strange day and it was a strange sight to watch as we looked completely alien to the side that I know we are.

"It was just a bad day.

"The occasion may have got to the players as it was two sides at the top and there were lots of cameras everywhere because of the way Hashtag are all over social media.

"I don't know, but we did speak to them that that would happen and the players just weren't on their games.

"However, we got it out of our system early with a friendly match in mid-week against Haverhill Borough.

"That was important because we needed to get our mojo back after last weekend.

"We got minutes into the legs of players who needed them and it was really important that we got a game like that.

"We couldn't go into the game against Newbury Forest with that performance at Hashtag still in our minds.

"Against Haverhill, we just did what we have been doing because what we have been doing is right.

"Other than that game, we'd only lost once in the league since coming back from pre-season, but it told us again that if you are off, you will get punished.

"The players found out the hard way that they can't let their levels drop.

"There were people at the game last weekend who were saying that it was an amazing game, but I didn't think like that because I know my team and I know they are so much better than that."

Halstead now turn their attention to Newbury Forest, who they host on Saturday, and McLean is looking for a better defensive performance from his team than in the previous meeting between the two as a depleted Humbugs side edged a 5-4 thriller.

"I want to concede less goals, that's for sure," said the Town boss.

"Scoring five again would be nice, but I don't want to concede four and I expect us to be a lot more solid than the last time we met them.

"They are going to be buoyant as they won 4-0 (against Wivenhoe) last weekend but we just need to worry about ourselves, get our game right and get our focus right.

"We have to make a good start and the first half hour will be very important."

McLean said Conel Dunlop would have his fitness assessed ahead of the game after coming off with an ankle injury last week, while Marcus Warren had come off during the mid-week friendly against Haverhill Borough with an Achilles problem and would also be looked at.