Hawes, the former Maldon Town striker, has proved a shrewd signing for manager Nicky Smith with his clinical finishing. Smith named an unchanged starting eleven. The only change was on the bench where the manager named himself in place of Danny Shipton who was unavailable.

This was not a match for the purists. A strong wind blowing the length of the pitch, coupled with an uneven playing surface, made sure of that.

And with a running track surrounding the playing area there was precious little atmosphere from the small crowd of 90, although the travelling AFC fans, who well and truly outnumbered the home supporters, did their best with their non-stop vocal support.

Waltham Forest, with just one league win this season and only one goal from their three previous matches, are currently third from bottom in Ryman League division one north, and they seldom looked like causing an upset against an AFC side high on confidence after their victory the previous week.

The home side had the strong wind behind them in the first half and as a result a lot of the play was in the AFC half, and a lot of time was spent retrieving the ball from the wide open space behind the AFC goal.

But even so very little got through to keeper Paul Cately, thanks to sound AFC defending and some wayward finishing, although there was an almost embarrassing moment for AFC in the 12th minute following an injury to a home player on the half way line.

AFC's Marcus Hunt kicked the ball into touch to allow the player treatment, and when play restarted Forest gave away possession by returning the ball back to Cately, who was almost caught out by the bounce in the wind, but it rebounded back off the bar into his arms.

Mamoud Souleman sent a rising shot over the AFC bar after 20 minutes but a minute later Hawes broke the deadlock following a quick counter-attack. The home defence had survived several AFC raids but this time they were caught square as Craig Bussens flicked the ball through to Hawes who beat keeper George Dawson with a fierce shot.

James Rowe came close to doubling AFC's lead when his angled shot was fumbled by Dawson and trickled agonisingly wide of the post.

At the other end Blackwell twice did well to block home efforts. First he diverted Souleman's shot for a corner, and from the flag kick the defender cleared Samuel Adesola's header off the line.

Three minutes before the break the home side were awarded a dubious penalty when Yacine Hamada went down under the challenge of Nathan Speed just inside the area. The referee pointed to the spot and Blackwell was yellow-carded for protesting before Souleman tucked the penalty away to send the teams in at half-time on level terms.

They were not level for long. AFC soon took advantage of the wind in their favour in the second half, scoring twice in the opening ten minutes as the home defence buckled under intense pressure.