Honiton Town slipped to a third straight defeat when beaten 2-0 at home by Clyst Valley.

Suddenly, the splendid five-match unbeaten start to the new campaign seems a distant memory for the Mountbatten Park men who played second fiddle to the visitors for much of the Fresha League top flight game.

Town did go into the game with only a dozen players available to them owing to injuries, suspension and unavailability.

Such was the general malaise of the Town performance that it took until the 40th minute for them to muster their first real effort on the visiting goal!

There were only a couple of positives to come from the game for the home side, one being a debut given to the latest to come through their youth ranks with a first outing for Matt Ayres and also some terrific saves made by goalkeeper Rowan Symonds.

A disappointed Town boss Kev Blackwell lamented: “I am afraid people are going to start to call me ‘Ricky Gervais’ after another ‘bad day at the office’!

Our fantastic start to the new campaign is now behind us and we need to get back to those early season performances individually and collectively.

While we were missing some players the fact is I still felt confident that we had a starting line up that was more than capable of securing three points for us.

“Clyst came looking for the three points and they fully deserved them. Given our previous two defeats they (Clyst) clearly smelt blood and they went for the jugular. They out-battled us and, more worryingly, out played us on our own patch. We had no answer to anything they put in front of us, and in fact came away with our tail firmly between our legs. It was pleasing to give 16-year-old Matt Ayres his debut and I am sure he would have learnt a lot from the experience.

“It’s now over to the lads to see just how they respond! With new leaders Elmore next we need to see solid team commitment or else we will be staring down the barrel of four successive defeats in all competitions.”

On Saturday Town host Elmore (3pm).