Brentford 2 Southend United 1

Brentford came through their perceived mini crisis when a 96th minute winner gave them an unexpected victory over Southend United -for what was surely their most important win of the season so far.

With Cort and Dickson still absent Andy Scott named a team with more round pegs in round holes - Wood restored to the midfield and Weston partnering MacDonald up front with Saunders replacing Taylor on the right hand side.

The Bees started tentatively with the ball being thumped long, hard, high and not very handsome to a non-existent targetman and their shaky confidence was totally deflated when the linesman ruled that Nicky Bull had taken Simon Francis's harmless free kick from way out wide over the line when totally unchallenged.

Despite some nice interchanges in midfield the vistors seemed to think that they had the game won and the half petered out with only a shot from Bean well saved from Mildenhall and an O'Connor free kick wastefully high waking the fans from their torpor.

The second half saw the Bees up the tempo with Saunders and Wood looking more threatening and the right footed Foster playing at left back looked more comfortable in his new surroundings.

Weston and Charlie tried hard to forge a partnership but most balls forward ended on the head of the commanding Barrett and then in the 67th minute when it looked as if for all their efforts the game was going to peter out in another worrying loss the Gods of Football finally turned in Brentfor's favour when Weston seized on the ball, went into the box and was sythed down by ex- Bee loanee Sankofa. O'Connor buried the penalty.

Southend woke up but created little and suddently it was Brentford who started to play with some of their confidence restored. Weston was played through by Charlie's head flick but failed to test Mildenhall and the visitors survived decent shouts for a second penalty when Weston went down.

The 4 minutes of time added on were more than up and it looked like a decent point when in the 96th minute the ball was played across the box and referee Wright was right on the spot and rightly (in Brentford's view) adjudged Moussa's tackle on Bean a foul and after the obligatory delay for arguments and dissent, iceman Kevin O'Connor blasted the winner to the keeper's right.

The Bees had come back from the dead and perhaps got their season back on track with a hard fought and crucial victory which their second half industry just about deserved.

Thanks to Greville Waterman and BIAS for the match report.