Grays Athletic suffered another dispiriting defeat at the hand of near neighbours Brentwood Town. Despite having long periods of possession, a lack of bite up front meant that they drew another home blank.

It was the visitors who probably started the brighter. A Sam Deering free kick brought several fine blocks from the Grays defence in a bout of ping-pong inside the Grays penalty area. And shortly after, Michael Finneran produced a great last ditch tackle to deny Alex Akrofi.

Slowly though, Grays grew into the game. On 20 minutes, Rob Clark found Teddy Jones in an advanced position but his shot went high and wide. And five minutes later Aron Gordon and Jordan Peart combined well but were stopped by an offside flag. Blues then created what was probably their best chance of the afternoon, when Jamie Dicks crossed the ball into the six yard box but Charlie Stimson fluffed his lines, unable to sort his feet out. Gordon and Peart continued to work the flank well, but as so often there was no-one to apply a finish. Blues also finished the half strongly, with Dicks hitting the bar following a Rob Clark corner.

Half time: Grays Ath 0 v 0 Brentwood Town

The second half also started promisingly for Blues, with two good chances in the first quarter of an hour. A long ball from Jamie Dicks almost fell to Finneran, who had got in behind the line, but Town keeper, Melvin Minter just beat him to the ball. And then Aron Gordon produced some trickery out wide left and made it into the box, but pulled the ball back behind the advancing Blues forwards.

Having weathered the early pressure, Brentwood began to turn the game. Matt Cripps missed a free head from a corner and the same player then tried his luck from distance but Finley Thackway saved comfortably. Blues were then saved by a flag, when a fine strike from outside the box by Connor Hogan took a deflection off a team-mate in an offside position.

But Brentwood were knocking on the door and Grays were visibly tiring. The last ten minutes went from bad to worse for Blues. With ten minutes left on the clock, sub Andrew Freeman planted a free kick beyond Thackway to put Brentwood in the lead and then a few minutes later, Romel Aarons Royal was left free from a corner to head home for 2-0. And then in the dying seconds, Daniel Ogunleye found himself unmarked in the area to complete the scoring.

The final score was certainly unjust on Grays but when the possession and chances go begging, there really is no-one else to blame.

Final score: Grays Athletic 0 v 3 Brentwood Town

Grays Ath: Thackway, Milner, Peart, Clark, Finneran, Jones, Dicks, Gordon, Stimson, Knight (Osei-Bobie, 77), Ellwood.

Subs not used: Boxhall, Stanford-Clarke, Carlos