Barnet manager Paul Fairclough insisted his decision to haul his players in for Sunday training was not meant as a punishment.

However, few fans would have argued if the former teacher, who watched his charges defend like ‘schoolboys’ the day before, had handed out detentions all round.

Few players performed to the acceptable standard and, as football is a team game, it was perhaps only right all should carry the can for this shambolic performance.

And that includes the management. Fairclough did not escape criticism himself, some home fans calling for his head at the final whistle.

The result and performance was strange to say the least. The Bees had just come out of a testing schedule with their heads held high, having taken points off many of the top sides.

This was supposed to be the first of a clutch of games that, on paper, was deemed to be a little easier.

Fairclough admitted he could not work out why his side so under-performed in a first half that produced all four County goals.

He said: “There was so much optimism before the game. The players were in as good a mood as I have ever seen them. They were very focussed, determined to change our home form. We were all very much up for the game.”

By half-time, there was a stunned silence around Underhill, broken only be a few boos.

The visitors had ripped the hosts to shreds. The Barnet defending was, as Fairclough himself put it, calamitous.

He added: “It was a torrid first half. I'm not going to blame the back four, but, as a team, we defended very poorly. It was schoolboy defending. You can't defend the way we did and expect to win games at any level.”

Jonathan Forte, on his debut, netted a hat-trick after Richard Butcher had fired the Magpies into an early lead.

To be fair, the Bees had chances themselves and, if their finishing had been as clinical, it might have been a different story.

Fairclough pointed out that County scored four times from their five chances.

“It's stupid, but it could have been 4-4 at half-time. We had chances. It's the centimetres in football that count. Adam Birchall was centimetres away on two occasions and Nicky Nicolau was centimetres away on another.”

The second half was a non-event. Though the Bees stemmed the tide, Fairclough admitted he could not judge his own team’s performance, as County had long given up attacking, in the full knowledge the points had been wrapped up.

BARNET (4-4-2): Harrison; Ogogo, Yakubu, Townsend, Gillet; Adomah, Porter (Deverdics 45), Bishop, Nicolau (Burge 60); Birchall (Medley 73), O'Flynn. Subs not used: Beckwith, Leary.

Attendance: 1,934.